In yet another bolt of clarity Wojtek reminded us
>It is one thing to say that Marxist theory explains some important aspects
>of capitalist relations of production (which I think it does), quite a
>differnt thing to determine to what degree those capitalist relations of
>production ar implemented in actual societies and to what extent they are
>mitigated by historical contingencies,
Yes,it is one thing to study motion in a vacuum and then to determine the
modification of motion by air pressure or viscosity. So Marx may have
initially assumed a closed capitalist society, without foreign trade or
vestigal or intermediate classes.
Let us assume a closed national capitalist economy (which may not be Marx's
assumption). If the current stock of machinery or inventories of such
machinery has suffered moral depreciation, this may represent a
destruction of value in an enclosed national capitalism. However if such
morally depreciated machinery can be sold *above value* either through
foreign direct investment (with most of the financing being domestic) or
through licensing agreements (according to Mansfield, et al 1982, the
average age of technologies transferred to their developing economy
subsidiaries by US firms during the 1960-1978 period was ten years and 13
years of technologies transferred through licensing; Mowery estimates
imports of capital equipment embody technologies that lies somewhere
between the age of those avaialbe through licensign and those transferred
to wholly-owned subsidiaries), then falling profitability on past
investments engendered by moral depreciation no longer obtains in an open
system. What may rather come to pass is the perenial debt of those who have
used loans to purchase equipment which is economically obsolescent in world
market terms.
But such modifications to capital's dynamics may not always be important.
To the extent that the dynamic of capital itself implies the destruction of
vestigal or intermediate classes, then capital's own development renders
less effective such interference to its own laws of motion.
Best,
Rakesh
