Re: The death agony of capitalism

[dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx (Doug Henwood)]

At 12:54 PM 7/24/96, Hugh Rodwell wrote:

>Doug writes:
>
>>Capitalism is *not* in its death agony.
>
>What he means is just that capitalism isn't dead yet. Which isn't the same
>thing.

Obviously it's not dead. But neither is it showing any signs of terminal
illness. I keep asking you for signs of that - specific signs, not
citations from dead authors - and I've yet to hear one. Profitability is
up, wages are down, unions are weak, and socialism is politically
neutralized. Lest I be accused of being a bourgeois apologist, let me make
it clear that I'm not happy about this state of affairs.

>And why do Marx, Lenin and Trotsky so consistently write that capitalism
>has outlived itself and that socialism is on the agenda? Why do both Lenin
>and Trotsky characterize our epoch as the epoch of transition to socialism?

"Our" epoch and their epochs are not the same. Marx wrote during a period
when capitalism was subject to many severe panics and crises; in the U.S.,
nearly half the late 19th century was a time of recession or depression.
When Ricardo wrote, there were no such generalized crises. These real
historical experiences had an effect on theory. Quote-mongers seem immune
to actual experience. Today, capitalism experiences crises, but so far the
state management apparatus has successfully prevented a total 1930s-style
implosion in the First World. There is much depressive misery in the Third
World, but so far there have been few sustained and powerful political
challenges to the neoliberal order.

>This is specious. Marx was overwhelmingly emphatic about the *historically
>inevitable inability* of capitalism to overcome its inherent barriers:
>
>        The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet
>        the  very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates
>        products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its
>        own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are
>        equally inevitable.
>
>        Manifesto, 1848

[etc.]

These quotes all center on the socialization of production and the
political potential of the proletariat - the first creates the
material/social preconditions for socialism, and the second, the political
impetus. None of them talk about "death agonies." I have a suspicion,
though I've not really worked this out, that a lot of the more unfortunate
crisis theorizing in Marxism was a tradition instituted by Engels, who,
whatever his virtues, was not the most subtle or complex of thinkers.

There should be a long moratorium on phrases like "the death agony of
capitalism" and "the irreversible crisis."

Doug

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Doug Henwood
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