ahem

["Mark Jones" <markjones011@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I see that the version of Michael Perelman's article on Marx and Malthus
which I posted contains some of my own marginalia, not meant for
circulation. Fortunately they are so full of typos that I doubt if it's
possible to make sense of them anyway, but sorry for possibly detracting
from the clarity of Michael's conclusion which is that:

>>Marx, apparently, did not feel free to assert directly that
shortages of raw materials were responsible for crises. To
take that position would play into the hands of the
Malthusians. Rather than risk getting bogged down in
debates that he hoped to avoid, he used very abstract
categories that seemed to have little to do with natural
resource scarcity, even when addressing the momentous
impact of the Cotton Famine.
For Marx, raw-material shortages reflected the inability
of capital to master the environment. He was confident
that under socialism such problems could be overcome,
but the specifics of that victory could not be given in
detail. Otherwise, he would have to begin a series of
endless debates about the specifics of the appropriate
form of socialist organization. That sort of activity could
only divert energies from more important tasks. The
'hidden socialist tendency' would have to remain hidden
within the formulae of the rising organic composition of
capital.
The inability of capital to obtain a sufficient supply
of raw materials can explain the rising organic
composition of capital, just as easily as the increasing
reliance on heavy machinery. Judging by Marx's
examples, expansion in the organic composition of
capital was, to a great extent, the result of the lagging
productivity in cotton. [can it??? surely raw material
shortage might lead (in neoclassicla terms) to falling
privces under condsitions of substituion; and graw
material do not only form part of C, but also V, since they
are ultimatrely consumed either ythru wear and tear of
macvhinery, passed on in vaoue terms as a small part of
the value of each commodity, or as food, clothing, goods
etc, consumed by people; shoretage of raw materials
mnight increase all relative prices uniformly, so a specific
shortage  might be undetectable, and even if hsortages of
primary inputs (energy, food) led to higher historic rates
of exploiutation, longer working day etc, it might not
depress the profiut rate or even the longrun rate of
accumulation. maj]
If this hypothesis is correct, it does provide a solution to
an important riddle. Many modern commentators are
struck by the relative lack of sophistication in Marx's
rather formalistic two-sector theory of the tendency of the
rate of profit to fall. This anomaly is especially obvious
when comparing his theory of the falling rate of profit
with the mathematical virtuosity, which he displayed in
his two sector models of the second volume of "Capitalo.
For Marx, the law of the falling rate of profit was "in
every respect the most important law of modern political
economy, and the most essential for understanding the
most difficult relations" (Marx 1974, p. 748). His search
for a mare's nest was compelling enough, but the
alternative approach, suggested here, also raised grave
political risks. Not surprisingly, he opted to continue his
quest for an automatic law of the falling rate of profit.
Siegel has pointed out that Marx's section on the falling
rate of profit contained numerous uncharacteristic slips,
which suggest that Marx's own doubts about this part of
his theory persisted despite his strong commitment to
discover a law that necessitated a fall in the rate of profit
(Siegel 1978, Ch. 11). In addition, Siegel has shown how
Engels' skepticism about this part of Marx's theory led
him to edit this section in a way that minimized the
deterministic aspects of this part of Marx's analysis
(Ibid.). Moreover, Engels himself, even though he was
the chief interpreter of Marxist theory for twelve years
after Marx's death, never wrote anything about the falling
rate of profit (see King 1985).
Scarcity may, in fact, play a much more significant role
in Marx's theory than has been previously suspected.<<


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