RE: Re: Re: Re: Fiscal Crisis of the State
thanks. I don't expect to resolve any debates about Marx, or even to engage them. I don't know anything about that stuff. All I could hope to do is fairly evaluate JOC's theory in light of subsequent experience. I don't have a horse in the marx interpretation contest, so in that sense I may be a bit more objective than others.mbs Max, I think you might very helpful the discussion . . .
Re: Re: Re: Fiscal Crisis of the State
Max, I think you might very helpful the discussion of O'Connor in John Bellamy Foster's chapter on the state in The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy and his chapter "Marxian Economics and the State" in his edited book The Faltering Economy: The Problem of Accumulation Under Monopoly Capitalism. Foster wants to free the Sweezy monopoly capital/overexploitation theory from any charge of reformism. While emphasizing the growth in the potential surplus and thus need for a Keynesian programme to maintain full employment, he attempts to show that in the face of the power of monopoly capital both the regime of taxation and the composition of social spending cannot be optimal towards the end of full employment. Taxes weigh heavily on the working class (Foster criticizes O Connor's treatment here) and military spending is large though it contributes to the long term stagnation of the economy. Moreover, monopoly firms may respond to the Keynesian stimulus through price, rather than output, increases. I am being very sketchy. Foster thus attempts to lay out a theory of the state for a monopolized already mechanized capitalist economy. He argues that there is a need to go beyond Marx whose theory of the falling rate of profit fit for a competitive, mechanizing (i.e, labor rather than capital saving) early capitalism. Now the potential surplus is massive while the inducement to invest has been weakened by the monopolization of the economy. Foster thus subjects Mattick, Cogoy and Yaffe to criticism. At this point, I would like to point out that I think Foster misunderstands the provisional acceptance of Say's Law by Grossmann and Mattick for a commitment to its actual validity. That is, Marx himself in fact provisionally accepted Say's Law at times in order to develop a theory of crises and cycles that is based on inadequate profits *independent* of any shortage of demand, a consequence of more fundamental contradictions than those arising from the non fufillment of Say's Law. David Yaffe whom Foster criticizes in detail for example handles Say's Law in just this way. Yaffe relies heavily here on Bernice Shoul, " Karl Marx and Say's Law" Quaterly Journal of Economics (Nov 1957), and Foster does not grapple with her argument. So the debates in marxist crisis theory seem not to have been resolved. We still have monopoly capital/overexploitation theory, disproportionality theories, now Brenner's vertical overcompetition theory (which in essence may be a neo schumpeterian theory of insufficient exit of inefficient capital, i think), simple underconsumption theories, falling rate and mass of profit theories. Max, we are all counting on you to resolve these debates once and for all in your review of O Connor. thanks, rakesh
Re: Re: Re: Fiscal Crisis of the State
> > > >> I understand there is a new edition of this coming out. I'm thinking > >> of doing a piece on it and would like to know of references to other > >> works that refer or react directly to O'Connor's book. > > > >Habermas's _Legitimation Crisis_ which came out the same year (1973) both > >refers to it and was influenced by it. You might also check out, if you have time, Michel Aglietta's _Theory of Capitalist Regulation: the US Experience_. In the introduction, Aglietta dispenses with an elaboration of a theory of the state by saying that he basically agrees with O'Connor (and others). Much of Mike Davis's argument about the Reagan years is based on a reading of Aglietta and regulationist lit--and so, I think, puts him in O'Connor's orbit. Likewise, the regulation school itself, which is fairly under-rated if acknowledged at all--tho unfairly so, I think, especially in Robt. Brenner's case--presses into service similar notions of state-economy transformations as O' Connor. Christian
Re: Re: Fiscal Crisis of the State
>On Mon, 17 Dec 2001, Max Sawicky wrote: > >> I understand there is a new edition of this coming out. I'm thinking >> of doing a piece on it and would like to know of references to other >> works that refer or react directly to O'Connor's book. > >Habermas's _Legitimation Crisis_ which came out the same year (1973) both >refers to it and was influenced by it. excellent point. i was once encouraged to become a habermasian but if you read those chapters on crisis and state theory, i think you'll agree that mattick sr has held up much better. habermas cites mattick here as well though he misses his point. also a good discussion of O'Connor in Erik Olin Wright *class, crisis and the state*, pp. 154ff. Not surprising since i think they were in close touch in the 70s, perhaps both editing kapitalistate. What is interesting (perhaps disturbing) is that wright, seemingly anticipating mancur olson, argues that the pluralist politics prevents the state from concentrating on productivity or accumulation enhancing forms of 'investment.' It seems that Wright uses O'Connor's split between accumulation and legitimation towards his own ends. So Wright holds out the possibility that a different mix of govt investments (less unproductive, less legitimizing sop for the special interest groups and more for the sake of improving productivity and reducing capital costs) could well stabilize the economy by overcoming underconsumption problems while spurring capital accumulation at the same time. Wright thus points to the possibility that a different kind of state intervention could yield what O'Connor calls a 'social industrial complex.' Wright's pessimism is not rooted in the possible limits of his envisioned productivist Keynesian program in the creation of this quasi utopia but rather in the political obstacles that could stymie such a program. While Wright includes military contractors as one of the possible recalcitrant special interests, he seems implicitly to deride democratic pressures from below for demanding unproductive expenditures, instead of more so called productive investments. He almost seems to view society from a technocratic point of view (james galbraith actually repudiates this kind of productivist and technocratic view of fiscal policy in created unequal). This is certainly not true of O'Connor himself who after all stuck with Marxism. Wright also does not seem to understand fully the implications of Mattick's strictly marxian understanding of govt debt as fictitious capital. I am pretty sure that max would not share this understanding. Rakesh
Re: Re: Fiscal Crisis of the State
>>I understand there is a new edition of this coming out. >>I'm thinking of doing a piece on it and would like to know >>of references to other works that refer or react directly >>to O'Connor's book. >> >>mbs max, brief 2-3 pp. discussion of o'connor in f.r. hansen, the breakdown of capitalism (routledge, kegan and paul). rb
Re: RE: Re: Fiscal Crisis of the State
> >It's _John_ Miller and the Review of Radical Political _Economics_. John has >published stuff on O'Connor elsewhere. thanks for the corrections, jim. if you do have exact cites for john miller's work i would appreciate it. thanks, rb
RE: Re: Fiscal Crisis of the State
thanks. mbs > > 1. a long footnote reference in Mario Cogoy, International Journal of > Political Economy, vol 17, no 2 (1987) see last article. . . .
RE: Re: Fiscal Crisis of the State
> i believe that there was an article by james miller in review of radical political economy analyzing different marxist theories of the state.< It's _John_ Miller and the Review of Radical Political _Economics_. John has published stuff on O'Connor elsewhere. >bob jessop makes brief reference to o connor in his state: putting capitalist states in their place. Jessop attempts to replace o'connor's dual categorization of state expenditures in terms either 'accumulation' or 'legitimation' with the couplet 'accumulation strategy' and 'hegemonic project'.< Sam Bowles & Herb Gintis, in their SCHOOLING IN CAPITALIST AMERICA, write of the contradiction between accumulation and the reproduction of social relations with direct reference to O'Connor (pp. 231f). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
