Re: [Marxism] Query on Henryk Grossman

[Steve Palmer <spalmer999@xxxxxxxxx>]

John is absolutely on target here. The whole balloon of credit is what
capitalism has used over the last half century to postpone the consequences of
rising labour productivity, the resulting increase in organic composition of
capital and decline in the profit rate.

I was very taken aback to read:
'-- Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I guess maybe my question is whether there 
is a "crisis theory" that directly relates to the events of the past 50 
years or so, which have been mostly based in the financial sector.'

Grossman himself addresses several facets of this in the section of his book on
countertendencies.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/grossman/1929/breakdown/ch03.htm

Much of Mattick's writing is concerned with showing how the expansion of credit
in the form of state sponsored deficit financing is an attempt to escape the
consequences of the falling rate of profit and to rebuild capital after WW2.
But that was just the institutional form from roughly 1945-80, when capital was
strong enough to assume the business of credit expansion directly. The
Reagan/Thatcher 'revolution' marks the ascendancy of finance capital once more,
bringing with it the massive growth of an unregulated financial sector.

Bullock and Yaffe, who are in the Grossman tradition, gave an extensive
discussion of the relationship of credit to the theory of crisis in their 1975
article 'Inflation, the crisis and the post war boom', Section II(e) and
passim.
(See http://tinyurl.com/2nus3p). Although written some 30 years ago, it
directly addresses the essentials of the current crisis. While that theory
there forms the basis for discussing the role of state expenditure, it is
equally applicable for the expansion of private credit. All that has changed is
the institutional form assumed by the credit mechanism. It forms the basis for
the articles I've been writing about the current credit crisis (eg last
August's 'As safe as houses', http://tinyurl.com/yokc3j).

The importance of this way of understanding the credit crisis are (1) it is
shown to grow directly out of the inherent tendencies of capital, and is not
some dumb policy, adventure or 'excess' (2) that the ability to 'solve' it is
constrained by the needs of capitalist accumulation and its (in)ability to
maintain profitability. This is a symptom of the much deeper underlying crisis
and, although it can be postponed with financial duct tape, can only be made to
go away by overcoming the deeper profitability crisis.

Steve

--- John A Imani <johnaimani@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> <<Speculative bubbles such as these hardly 
> relate to increased automation of auto, etc., or any other typical 
> manifestation of the organic composition of capital.>>
> 
> They most certainly do.

[extensive supporting argument and examples snipped]


      
____________________________________________________________________________________
Never miss a thing.  Make Yahoo your home page. 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism