From Pat Bond to Mark Jones:
> > Finally, the global problem capitalism faces is not
>over-accumulation, but a
>> capital shortage, desperate and bordering on famine.
>
>Ok, this one I will look forward to with interest, comarde.
Aside from Mark, who else is today worrying about capital shortage?
(The business media used to worry about it a lot during the 70s,
which was revealed to be an absurd scare story -- capitalist
ideologues believing in their own propaganda for pro-capital
legislations like low taxes, balanced budgets, etc. -- by the editors
of _Monthly Review_; see "Capital Shortage -- Fact and Fancy_ by the
editors of _Monthly Review_ 27.11 [April 1976].) Well, there's
Rakesh Bhandari:
***** Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 12:24:08 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <v02130501630bd4419d2f@[128.112.71.50]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rakesh Bhandari)
Subject: Re: Brenner reply to doug henwood
>________
>Charles: However, in Vol. III of Capital Marx also
>says:
>
>>"The ultimate reason for all
>>real crises always remains the
>>poverty and restricted consumption
>>of the masses as opposed to the
>>drive of captialist production to develop
>>the productive forces as though only
>>the absolute consuming power of
>>society constituted their outer limit "
>>(Capital vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp.
>>472-73) ;
Charles,
There are at least three places one can turn for an interpretation of
this passage.
Guglielmo Carchedi, Frontiers of Political Economy. Verso,
Paul Mattick, Economic Crisis and Crisis Theory
Adolph Lowe, Path of Economic Growth, p. 252
Lowe presents Marx's argument as one of capital shortage:
"The case for a capital shortage found its strongest expression in
Marx. However it was no longer considered that a deficiency of
circulating capital in the form of an alleged wage fund caused the
trouble, but rather a shortage of *fixed* capital. Ricardo had
already discovered that it was somehow easier to absorb the displaced
workers in 'menial services' than in industrial production. Now Marx
offered an explicit argument. To find productive employment for the
displaced, new working places--plant and equipment--have to be
provided. This requires a process of saving and investment which is
by no means automaticaly assured by the existence of idle facotrs or
even surplus profits of the technical pioneers."
Lowe then reasons:
increasing capital intensity/increasing capital per
worker->bottleneck of capital formations requiring steadily
increasing rates of investment or the continuing lengthening of the
adjustment period->high unemployment during the adjustment period or
the absorption of workers in low paying menial services->downward
pressure on the wage level and on aggregate consumption->cumulative
deflation or cyclical downswing.
The proximate cause of crisis is thus indeed the poverty and the
limited consumption of the masses. But the chain begins with a
shortage of surplus value in the short and perhaps even long term
with which to purchase additional fixed capital.
In Malthus time there was a technical inability to produce additional
fixed capital with which to absorb the growing proletariat (there was
insufficient technical development of the means by which to produce
means of production with which to absorb additional workers)--hence,
his fear of overpopulation.
The problem Marx theorizes is the opposite. There is now an enormous
amount of fixed capital per worker, so enormous that an insufficient
mass of surplus value can be extorted from these workers for the
purchase of additional fixed capital. Moreover it may not even be
profitable to further capitalize production given the amount of
surplus value which can be extorted from relatively fewer workers.
Now there is the absurd juxtaposition of idle capital and idle
workers and the real threat of runaway cumulative deflation.
best, rakesh
<http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/9811/1123.html> *****
The problem with the theory above is its fixation with "*fixed*
capital" in heavy industry, forgetting that under capitalism services
do not have to be "menial services" (= unproductively employed
personal servants of the rich) but instead tend to become service
industries productive of surplus value in their own right. Living
labor (variable capital) is more important than dead labor (constant
capital) for the reproduction of capitalist relations, and there's no
shortage of living labor.
Yoshie
