Subject: Re: SUBJECTIVITY, HEGEL'S ABSOLUTE, SELF-EXPANDING CAPITAL From: wpc-AT-clyder.gn.apc.org (Paul Cockshott) Date: Tue, 25 Jul 95 08:46:08 PDT Rakesh ------ And I think that Marx explains how the self expansion of capital is possible on the basis of the duality of labor, on the basis of the reproduction of a duality of abstract labor and concrete labor. This is what Rosdolosky emphasizes in his chapter on the Reproduction Schemes The nature of the contradictions engendered by the self-expansion of capital is a critical question. And this brings us back to the various schools of crisis theory (kaleckian theory being I think a variant of underconsumptionism), with Postone inagurating a new one, based on the Grundrisse, which he likens to a shearing process. Paul ---- Marx certainly shows that the self expansion of aggregate social capital is possible, and his reproduction schemes here represent a tremendous advance in being the first mechanism to be invented for conceptualising a capitalist economy as a whole. However, one should note that possibility is not necessity. Using the same mechanism of reproduction schemes one can show that the self contraction of capital is possible. I have not read Postone so that I am at a disadvantage in discussing his ideas with you. I will attempt to see if our library has anything by him. As to Kalecki, it is probably fair to categorise him as an underconsumptionist, but I think that for the clarity, simplicity and elegance of his theory he is exceptional. Moreover, when one reads his work ( Selected Essays in the Dynamics of the Capitalist Economy, being the best starting point) one sees that the real causal relations operating in a capitalist economy can be the inverse of what one initially assumes. Marx made this point in general about science, but Kalecki brings out into the open some very counter intuitive inversions that were stated, but not emphasised, in Vol II of capital. Rakesh ------ I have one question about Paul's analysis of state capitalism: Is the economizing of labor time--a datum of planning in a post-capitalis society--only a conscious application of the law of value. Is this what distinguishes socialism: the conscious application of the law of value? Does value persist under socialist relaion o production, as argued by Stalin for example. Paul ---- I presented 3 forms of public property with different conditions of reproduction. Although I did not label them in my previous post, I would normally choose to characterise them as: 1. State Capitalism 2. Socialism 3. Communism ( lower phase ) I consider the soviet orthodoxy that identified socialism with the lower phase of communism to be mistaken. I think that Stalin was right in saying that value in the sense of exchange value persists under socialism. (My second example corresponded to the production relations of soviet socialism.) But Stalin was unclear as to how the elimination of commodity production and the law of value were to be achieved in the transition to communism, though he definitely thought that had to be done. The sense in which one can speak of a law of value under communism is rather different. There remains a law of the necessity of the proportionate and efficient distribution of social labour. It is this general law, which applies to all modes of production with a division of labour, that produces among its effects in a capitalist society the more limited sense of a law of value - the conservation of embodied labour content in exchange transactions. Under communism the law of value takes on an un-alienated and unfetishistic form. My use of the idea of value here is influenced by Athar Hussains 1973 article 'Misreading marx's theory of value: Marx's marginal notes on Wagner', which appears in 'Value', CSE books 1979. --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- ------------------
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