On Sep 11, 2012, at 10:28 PM, nathan tankus wrote: > It's very complex to untangle what exactly is driving the larger > amount of constant capital relative to variable capital in > production (Recall that, as I understand it, Constant and Variable > capital are the money sums that purchase raw materials, fixed > capital, labor time etc, not these physical variables themselves) . > Is it just increased depreciation costs? is is a price spike in raw > materials (as our list moderator suggests it is, in part, in his > 1989 crises theory book)? Is firm debt creating more effective > demand for machinery and thus driving up it's exchange value? It's > been somewhat perplexing trying to disentangle it all.
By far the most important factor, which was so unimportant in Marx's time that he scarcely discussed it and never explicitly integrated it, has become the "elephant in the room:" the enormous increase in the extent of unproductive labor (circulating constant capital) and the buildings and equipment provided for it (fixed constant capital). In Marx's day almost all the constant capital in most any big urban area took the form of industrial plant and equipment. Today almost all the constant capital in most any big urban area (outside China et. al.) takes the form of office buildings and equipment, with the suburbs dominated by shopping malls. At the last cycle-peak the share of the US economy ascribed to the FIRE sector was 40%! From the viewpoint of industrial (productive) capital this is vampirism, the extortion of surplus value to the point of bankruptcy by Bain-type "private equity." For the economy as a whole it means permanent and permanently increasing financial instability far beyond the classical Marxian cycle of crises. Shane Mage "scientific discovery is basically recognition of obvious realities that self-interest or ideology have kept everybody from paying attention to" _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
