From: "John R. Ernst" <ernst-AT-pipeline.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 02:20:05 -0500
Subject: All of the above


Chris, 
 
I do not think we have to make a choice.  As you point out, 
the statements are not "mutually exclusive."    
 
 
1.  Statement 1 simply states "...furnishes a material basis for 
     the periodic crises." 
 
2.  Statement 2 describes how crises are overcome. 
 
 
3.  Statement 3 presents us with the possibility that wages may 
     rise just before a crisis occurs. (Note that this quote is  
     taken from Ch 25, Sec. 1 of Bk I, where no change in  
     technology is assumed.) 
 
 
John 
 
 
 
 
On 27 Nov 95 "Chris, London" <100423.2040-AT-compuserve.com> said: 
 
 
>There appear to be three different but not mutually exclusive 
>statements by Marx on the fundamental nature of cycles, and the  
>*principal* reason for their periodicity. 
> 
>Which should we prefer? 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>John said: 
> 
>> Do you accept Marx's idea that the turnover of fixed capital 
>>   would form the material basis for a theory of crisis? 
>> 
>Chris said: 
> 
>>- Could you give a reference by chapter and para number, for this 
>>idea? 
> 
>See CAPITAL, BK II, Ch. 9, Para 11 
> 
> 
> 
>Comment by Chris: 
>----------------- 
> 
>1. 
>xx 
> 
>Thanks for the convenient reference by 
>chapter and para, which helps regardless of edition. 
> 
>"One may assume that in the essential branches of modern industry 
>this life-cycle now averages ten years. However we are not concerned 
>here with the exact figure. This much is evident: the cycle of  
>interconnected turnovers embracing a number of years, in which capital is 

>held fast by its fixed constituent part, furnishes a material basis 
>for the periodic crises..." 
> 
> 
>2. 
>xx 
> 
> 
>The argument presented in this passage is consistent with that 
>in the Communist Manifesto but not identical: 
> 
>"How does the bourgeoisie get over these crises?  On the one 
>hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; 
>on the other ..." 
> 
>Here the statement could imply that the discounting of vast  
>quantities of unsold stock in a slump, is an essential part of  
>the process of resolution of the crisis, as well as the discounting 
>of large areas of uncompetitive fixed capital. 
> 
>3. 
>xx 
> 
>Capital Vol 1 Ch xxv "The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation", para 6:

> 
>"... a rise in the price of labour resulting from the accumulation of  
>capital implies the following alternative: 
>Either the price of labour keeps on rising, because its rise does not 
>interfere with the progress of accumulation. ... 
>Or, on the other hand, accumulation slackens in consequence of the rise 
>in the price of labour, because the stimulus of gain is blunted. The rate
of 
>accumulation lessens; but with its lessening, the primary cause of that  
>lessening vanishes, i.e. the disproportion between capital and exploitable

>labour-power. The mechanism of the process of capitalist production
removes 
>the very obstacles that it temporarily creates. The price of labour falls 

>again to a level corresponding with the needs of the self-expansion of  
>capital, whether the level be below, the same as, or above the one which 
>was normal before the rise of wages took place. We see thus: In the first 

>case it is not the diminished rate either of the absolute,  or of the  
>proportional, increase in labour-power, or the labouring population,  
>which causes capital to be in excess, but conversely the excess of  
>capital that makes exploitable labour-power insufficient. In the second 
>case, it is not the increased rate either of the absolute, or of the  
>proportional, increase in labour-power, or labouring population, that
makes 
>capital insufficient; but, conversely, the relative diminution of capital 

>that causes the exploitable labour-power, or rather its price, to be in  
>excess. It is these absolute movements of the accumulation of capital
which  
>are reflected as relative movements of the mass of exploitable labour
power, 
>and therefore seem produced by the latter's own independent movement. 
>To put it mathematically: the rate of accumulation is the independent, 
>not the dependent, variable; the rate of wages, the dependent, not the  
>independent, variable."   
> 
>This passage, much quoted by Steve Keen, appears to me to say that the  
>principal cause of crises is the limitation of the total available capital

>in the form of both variable and constant capital, because there is a
limit 
>to the total exchange value of the society, and that the limiting factor  
>that tips the cycle into crisis is a slowing of the rate of accumulation
of  
>capital. 
> 
> 
>Are these three somewhat different Marxist explanations of the limit cycle

>and its repeated resolution, incompatible, and if not, which is the most  
>authoritative version? 
> 
>Chris, London 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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