Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 02:34:54 -0800 From: bhandari-AT-phoenix.princeton.edu (Rakesh Bhandari) Subject: Re: M-TH: value theory and the empirical economy I will return later to Doug's criticisms of Carchedi's explanations of stock market panics and financial crises. It seems that Doug has missed one of the central themes of his analysis--fictitious capital--and I really can't at present work through Hayek, deBrunhoff, Horace Robbins and others. If I remember correctly, one of Carchedi's main effort is the explanation of rises in the market price of shares beyond what their present dividends or the future profits of the respective companies justifies. Doug also notes the Communist Manifesto as justification for a statist conception of social democracy; I would suggest we look at the Critique of the Gotha Programme, suppressed for some time by social democrats, to determine the nature of Marx's critique of politics--here we also have Gary Teeple's Marx's Critique of Politics, Paul Thomas Alien Politics, Adam Przeworksi's critique of social democracy. But as much as I get excited about FICTITIOUS CAPITAL and MARX'S CRITIQUE OF POLITICS, I must stay focused on matters racial. A quick response to: >Silly me, I'd hoped that several generations of theorizing a catastrophe >that has never arrived might actually lead people to question the >usefulness of the theorizing. Yes, silly you (Doug). In the previous post, I put in capital letters (though you ignored it anyway) the reminder that Grossmann and Mattick had predicted post war BOOMS first on account of devaluations and secondly (this is specific Mattick's contribution) on account of the false prosperity of the mixed economy. (In an extremely subtle analysis, Cogoy shows how the growth of a "third department" can INcrease social production and consumption while at the same negatively affecting the expanded reproduction of total social capital, so in the early 70s there was a prediction and retrodiction of high levels of production, giving way to stagnation and then to more vicious struggles over the rate of exploitation--boy, what an embarrassing analysis.) Carchedi argues that through the international distribution of value much of the crisis has been passed so far on to the dominated countries. So the claim that there had been predictions of catastrophes for GENERATIONS is a strawman. Rakesh ps Doug, if you could give me citations for Shaikh's most recent work on long waves, I would appreciate it. There is an essay of his in a volume edited by Wallerstein, I believe. But I couldn't find it in the library. There are Schumpeterian roots to Mandel's interest in long waves (Barkley Rosser used to take such a line). Based on Marx's value theory, Moseley and Carchedi emphasize that a thorough-going crisis-induced devaluation is necessary for there to be a significant upward hike in the rate of profit, that upturns only seem technologically induced because innovations are adopted as accumulation resumes, though the conditions for that cannot be achieved without deep crisis. Is Shaikh's idea of an upward turn specifc to thus US; is the claim based on the defeat of the working class or productivity payoffs from new technologies? Does he theorize any political conditions for it to be secured? It's not that I am going to read the essay because I am working on my diss--but just for reference. Thanks. --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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