[was: RE: [PEN-L:23698] Veneziani, Roemer, & Marx] Charles B:> Would Marx want us to think we have some kind of almost perfect theory of the laws of development of capitalism and capitalist production, as if with it we could reform capitalism as capitalism ?<
if you're going to put on your "critical cap," I'll have to get out my Ouija board and organize a seance to find out what Marx would want. But I don't know what Marx would want, while posing the question that way seems a distraction from a serious discussion of reform vs. revolution issues. I'm not going to talk about "what Marx would think": instead, I'll give my own opinions. >Isn't one of Marx's basic points that it is anarchic and unpredictable in essential features, and only remediable by socialist revolution and organization based on social forethought, as Chris B. puts it , planning, public property ? Doesn't Marx have to be read not only as a whole in all volumes of _Capital_, but the whole of his writings, _The Manifesto of the CP_, The Internationale's memoes and activities, etc. ? ...< (1) Capitalism is fundamentally unpredictable, but I would say that there's some predictability to it nonetheless. It's like with the law of large numbers: even though individual actions are almost impossible to predict, the average can be predictable. More specifically, capitalism (as far as I can tell) has an inherent tendency toward over-accumulation crises, i.e., to go too far even when "too far" is measured using capitalist criteria such as the aggregate average profit rate. (In other words, capitalists often foul their own nest -- a nest we have little choice but to live in -- in a way that sometimes seen in the form of a depression of the rate of profit.) Of course, the actual form of over-accumulation crises depends on specific historical conditions. (2) The anarchy of production is just one structural problem that's inherent in capitalism. Another is the aggressive competition amongst capitals (a related issue, but not the same as the anarchy of production). (It's possible that something like that might show up in a different form in a planned system, e.g., as competition amongst state bureaucrats. Maybe that had something to do with the blood purges in the USSR in the 1930s and after.) More important is the structural antagonism between the two main classes. A fully socialist revolution would get rid of all of these structural tensions, replacing anarchy, competition, and class with democracy. This is a big issue. I'm afraid I'm going to have to restrict my participation in further discussons of this thread, since my Spring break is drawing to a close. Jim Devine
