Picking up the thread....

[dmschanoes]

Several days ago Carrol Cox took exception to my references to "the conflict between the means and relations of production" as being essential to Marx's analysis of, and to, capital.   I answered him offlist to avoid overposting.    In the attempt to exercise my full ration of bandwidth, I'll reproduce my reply today.  Let's just call it a placeholder...   I promise however not to re-enter the Greenspan discussion... ________________________________-   Carrol,   Marx uses that exact phrase sparingly to be sure, but to say that is the extent of Marx's analysis thereof is to miss the point, and entirely, of everything he writes about capital being a contradiction reflected into itself, contradiction in motion, creating the terms, conditions, and actors in its own overthrow.   Everything Marx writes about exchange value is about the social organization of labor and the necessity of that organization to correspond with development, (growth and rational deployment) of the means of production.  Everything he writes about the problems of capital in the areas of expanded reproduction, overproduction, declining  rates of profit, is a reflection of the conflict between the relations of production-- capital, i.e. means of production as private property, and wage-labor, each existing in the organization of the other, and the means of production-- the absolute growth of the fixed asset base, the constant portion, the accummulated dead labor and the necessity of social revolution triggered by this conflict.   I don't know how it is possible to read Capital, Grundrisse, TSV, the notebooks, Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,  and the Marx-Engels correspondence on the US Civil War, and not see how this central facet permeates every bit of analysis.l   Overproduction is this conflict compressed into one "body" so to speak.  The falling rate of profit is another compressed manifestation of this.   I have written on this extensively and if you're interested I can send some of it to you.    I do not cite scriptures and in my analysis of oil I pointed out exactly how the oil price marked that ongoing conflict between the means and relations of production.   dms