From: "jurriaan bendien" <Jbendien-AT-globalxs.nl>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Mandel's critique of Mattick
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 12:35:18 +0100


James writes, in response to the different issues concerning crises:

> >1.  What makes crises possible ?  Money, according to Marx, as it
separates sale and purchase. See Cap.  Vol1, Chapter 3.

Agreed. (Incidentally, this is also what Mandel says, in Marxist Economic
Theory, chapter on periodic crises).
> 
> >2.  What makes crises inevitable ? Overaccumulation, failure to create
sufficient surplus to fund new round of investment.

There I don't quite agree. Briefly put, I would say simply the "anarchic"
nature of production give the structure of capitalism, as described in
previous posts, which inevitably leads to uneven development
(disequilibrium).  The theory of over-accumulation belongs to the
explanation of the actual dynamic of crises.
> 
> >3.  What makes crises necessary ?  Not sure how that differs from the
above. 

I am referring here to an explanation of the dynamic of crises which shows
the interaction of the laws of motion of capitalism producing the result of
crises, the causal sequence involved. This is what Grossmann, Mattick,
Bukharin, Luxemburg, Mandel and others tried to do with varying degrees of
success.
> 
> >4.  Why are crises periodically recurrent ?
> 
> Because each crisis is its own forcible resolution, as constant capital
> is written off and labour power forced beneath its value.

I don't quite agree.  Firstly it is not necessarily the case that labour
power is sold below its value.  Secondly the periodicity of crises (and
Marx refers here to "crisis" in the sense of the downturn at the end of a
7-year (or so) cycle has to do mainly with staggered investments in fixed
capital.
> 
> >6.  What type of analysis is appropriate to explain a. the historic
crisis
> >of the capitalist system, b.  Kondratieff-type fluctuations, c. the
> >ordinary business cycle ?  I tend to think that b. and c. are
mystifications. 'Business cycles' is
> a category that covers a multitude of sins, and I am not sure that there
are 'Kondratiev cycles'.

Well I agree there is no Kondratieff "cycle", in the sense of a
mechanically recurrent sequence. That notion is schematism.  Nevertheless,
in the attempt to periodise the history of capitalist development, clear
evidence has been found of "waves" of faster and slower growth, lasting
approximately 25 years. Roughly speaking, I think the tendency towards
stagnation can be explained "endogenously" from the laws of motion of
capitalism, while the upturns paving the way for a renewed period of
sustained growth must be explained by defeats of the working class, and by
technological revolutions opening up new markets, bringing into play the
counter-tendencies to the TPRF specified by Marx.  As regards business
cycles, they do indeed cover a multitude of sins.  However they do exist,
as business does go through recurrent phases. Orthodox economics posits
these business cycles mainly as a statistical correlation of empirical
trends. Marxist theory tries to causally explain the empirical trends. 

Regards

Jurriaan.


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