Interesting exchange on overproduction (from psn-l)

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey, good show, comrade. 

"dmschanoes"

Charles, I do not think you are offering Keynesian palliatives as a solution
for capitalism. I do think confusion on this issue allows some others to
blur the critical lines of Marx's analysis.
The category of underconsumption is subject to such confusion because
consumption itself appears as unmediated, unhistorical needs- subsistence
requirements or above-- but somehow detached, not class specific-- 
immutable, universal etc. And that can lead for the historical specificity
of capitalism, for its specific class relations, embodied in the production
of commodities, to be discounted-- by others.

^^^^^^
CB: I believe here you are returning to the issue of the historically
changing character of use values. A subsistence bundle of commodities in
2003 is not the same as that in 1867. So, to the extent that consumption by
a buyer is motivated by a desire for specific uses this changes over time.
What people "need" and "want" changes over time. Is that what you are
getting at here ? If so, let me set to rest this issue, because what I am
saying does not assume an ahistorical subsistence bundle. My argument begins
with exploitation. Exploitation is of  _exchange_, not use, value.

^^^^^^^

I think you are half-right in your analysis that any wage is "too little,"
and "underconsumption" is inherent in the system.

^^^^^^
CB: I'm not sure why you say "half". It is absolutely true in Marx's scheme
that any wage level will be insufficient to buy all the commodities
produced. It is mathematically , strictly true, isn't it  ?

Now I am interested in what you say following, and I may have to cogitate on
it some. My position is that there are a number of further steps to get to a
crisis from exploitation. And one thing I said poorly before , said better
perhaps, is that underconsumption is, in Marx's term, the ultimate cause of
any crisis, but it is not the immediate cause of any crisis. Let me try to
understand what you teach me below:

 But that is not the same thing as overproduction. Marx in his distillation
of the actual capitalist mechanisms, leads us to focus on the relations,
social, of production and then takes that focus and breaks it down again
into the relations between the living and dead components of production. If
it is the organization of the means of production as private property, and
its exchange with labor organized as wage-labor that determines the
metamorphoses of the "economy," then those same relations, that exchange
between components of production must also account for the "crises,"
disruptions in the production process.

^^^^^^
CB: OK. What does the "over" in "overproduction" refer to ? Over what ? Too
much in relation to what ?

I agree with your characterization of Marx's approach in terms of the
relations between living and dead components of production (variable and
constant capital, I believe is your reference), means of production as
private property and its exchange with labor organized as wage-labor.  But
consumption is an exchange of this type, isn't it ? An exchange between the
components of _capital_ , I'd call it.  

^^^^^^^^


So it must be in the conversion of surplus value into capital that we find
overproduction, -- that is to say conversion of wage labor into private
property that exceeds the bounds of capitalist production itself-- profit,
and we must find it not in the failure of the markets to perform but in
their great success-- as a result of their great success. This is not a
relationship of consumption of the surplus value, of the surplus product,
but of the reproduction of the terms of exchange where the growth of the
means of production through the accumulation of capital-- that is to say
private ownership undermines that ownership-- that alienated production
itself, and undermines the ability of exchange value production to maintain
profit..

^^^^^^^
CB: I agree that from the standpoint of the capitalists the crisis is the
drop in the rate of profit ( this causes them to take other actions, like
closing plants,laying off people, that are the crisis for most people). 

I can't quite follow the grammar and logic of your first sentence. Would you
mind reiterating it ? What do you mean by

"So it must be in the conversion of surplus value into capital that we find
overproduction, -- that is to say conversion of wage labor into private
property that exceeds the bounds of capitalist production itself--
profit..."  
How does "profit" grammatically connect to "we find overproduction" ? In
what sense does private property exceed the bounds of capitalist production
? 

Similarly, in your last sentence, I can't quite follow the grammatical
connection of the sentence before and after the clause in between the
dashes. 

HOW does 
"the reproduction of the terms of exchange where the growth of the means of
production through the accumulation of capital-- that is to say private
ownership undermines that ownership-- that alienated production itself, and
undermines the ability of exchange value production to maintain profit."  ?

HOW  and why does the growth of the means of production through the
accumulation of capital ...undermine the ability of exchange value
production to maintain profit ?

I appreciate your discussion 

CB



This is, in my opinion, the kernel in Marx's discussions of overproduction
in The Grundrisse, and Theories of Surplus Value. At least that's where I
take the arguments, (as already agreed, Marx argued various positions at
various times), and why I am not comfortable with notions of
underconsumption.
dms



~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.