Interesting exchange on overproduction (from psn-l)

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: "David Schanoes" 

Hey Charles, nice to hear from you:

1. Yes I did read your post, and in an earlier post I discussed how Marx
would assume "underconsumptiont/overproduction" and then reject it only to
reassume and reject it again-- along with disproportionality which he
supported and then found inadequate and then supported again. 

^^^^^
CB: Yes, I read your post. Maybe he was confused :>)

2. Marx quite clearly states that the root cause of overproduction is in the
exploitation of the worker-- but I don't think Marx is implying or insisting
or identifying that exploitation as the restriction on consumption. It is in
the specific terms of that exploitation of
labor-- the extraction of surplus value, the production for profit that, I
think, is the determining definition of exploitation.

^^^^^^
CB: I agree with your determining definition, but I'm not sure why you don't
think Marx is identifying exploitation as the restriction on consumption.
What does he identify as the restriction on consumption ?
  
3. I think yes, the capitalist has to realize the surplus value extracted in
production in the exchange with all other commodities, but that is not
dependent on wage rates, and how much the workers' consume. 
Marx goes out of his way to demolish the notion that workers' wage rates
high or low are the causes of overproduction or crises, and he shows how
overproduction and crises actually afflict capitalism when wages and
consumption increase, which is not the same thing as wages causing crises.
The difference, again, is in the rate, the ratio, the relation of surplus
value to capital and the ability of profit to be reproduced quickly enough
in the markets. 

^^^^^^
CB: _Any_ wage rate, high or low, results in underconsumption ( i.e. not
enough to purchase all the commodities produced) because by definition a
wage involves exploitation, extraction of surplus value; and exploitation
strictly implies not enough money in the hands of the working class as a
whole to buy all the commodities they produce.

It is not a high or low wage that causes a crisis. Any wage rate must result
in not enough buying power in the working class as a whole to buy all the
commodities.  It is not that low wage rate that _causes_ overproduction. It
is the nature of a wage ( pay for only part of the time worked) that renders
whatever amount that is produced as too much for the workers to buy all of,
i.e. to be "over" , too much for the dollars chasing . This is "the ultimate
cause" of all crises, as in the quote from Marx that you found for me the
last time we discussed this.



4. Too often, in fact inevitably, the arguments about underconsumption fade
into proposals for stimulating aggregate demand-- when of course the demand
may already exist, may be increasing, but without the means for profitable
exchange-- i.e. overproduction of agricultural products, etc.

^^^^^^^
CB: Well, as Marxists we take as given that capitalism cannot be reformed.
So, pointing to the role of underconsumption in the crises does not
inevitably fade into only reformist proposals, although, as I said, as
Marxists we _are_ in favor of reforms. We just strive to pursue reforms in a
way that will demonstrate the need to go further, no ?


5. Yes, I think when you say the underconsumption is not regarding use
value, but exchange value, you are on the right path-- but then it isn't
underconsumption at all-- it's exchange, profitable exchange, the ability of
capital to support the terms of its self-expansion within the confines of
private property which is itself. That's the revolutionary
nexus-- the conflict between means and relations of production, the
convergence of the falling rate of profit with overproduction, the "law of
value, the hard way" as Brother Melvin puts it, that makes crisis not just
inevitable but necessary to the system of production.

^^^^^^
CB: I don't quite follow where you say "private property which is itself. "

Again, you don't think I am saying that Keynesian measures to increase
effective demand can put an end to capitalist crises, do you ?


dms



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