Re: Ticktin article

["dmschanoes" <dmschanoes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ticktin makes the point, that the war was not about the supply or shortage
oil as oil, only to undermine it by his lack of understanding of the "law of
value" and the actual functioning of the capitalist economy.

The production of oil, bat guano (not the character in Dr. Strangelove),
rubber is not production of articles for use, but production of commodities
for exchange.  Clearly in the the case of war and oil, war and rubber, (I
don't know about the bat guano war), the precipitating forces are not
shortages or the vital nature of supplies, but the overproduction leading up
to the war.  WWII was the result of the depression, the depression was most
certainly the product of the overproduction of capital.  The "strategic"
importance of oil or rubber is the strategic importance of profit, not the
article as such.

The only strategic resource the US is seeking to protect in its struggle
against Chavez is the resource of private property, not the petroleum
reserves.  Nothing Chavez has done has threatened US access to Venezuelan
oil.

Noting the importance of a resource to a war effort is like coming a little
late to the party, after all the food has been sitting out for 6 hours and
noting the importance of refrigeration.  Germany's drive to the Russian oil
fields was not the precipitating force of WWII but a product of that
precipitating force.

But Comrade Proyect and I have argued about this many times before, so let
me conclude....

Ticktin misses the boat entirely when he says at one and the same time there
is no shortage, there is overcapacity BUT the law of value is being reduced
in depth and extent.  Huh?  How is that possible?  Then he goes on to make
the usual arguments about disproportionality which in an of itself
"denatures" the issue of overproduction from its social origins in
capitalist class organization and its impact on class struggle.

dms

.