[Marxism] The Manifesto Lives!

["Charles Brown" <charlesb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

M-TH: The Manifesto Lives!

http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/1998-September/011530.html
_____________
Dave
Bedggood wrote:

Though this might spark some more pointed discussion
about the world crisis? And what we are doing to resolve it
practically.  Isnt it good for a change to find that the
bourgies are using the label "world crisis" even if they don't know
what it means.
 Dave B

The Communist Manifesto Lives!

It is  predictable that the various  academic left takes on 150 years
of  the Communist Manifesto which have flooded the pre-millenial
market should have swung in behind the post-cold war consensus of capitalism
with a democratic facelift - call it generic Blairism. At time when
all of the prophetic power of the Manifesto is about to explode
their pretence. All  suitable caveats and qualifications designed to keep
Marxism alive in the text but  not in reality will be remaindered
into the dustbin.

There is no denying that modern capitalism is a barbaric world system
which allows the market to destroy nature and humanity by
instalments. The Western illusions that capitalism could be
transformed into a consumer nirvana have failed. The new UN
Human Development Report tells us that 225 of the richest people
have an income around $1 trillion about the same as the 2.5 billion
poorest people - about half of the world's population.
More than 80% of those living in the 'developing countries' cannot afford
to buy the goods and services they need to survive.

These facts are so unassailable, the bourgeoisie is forced to come up with
an
explanation other than that of Marx. They cannot admit that Marx was
right, and that the new 'ghost', world  anarchy, is really no more than the
old ghost of  'communism' revisiting from beyond the grave.

The question they ask  is: if this is not the anarchic future that Marx
predicted, what can be done? For Marx, the future of capitalism would see
its
revolutionary development arrested by the contradiction between the
forces and relations. The relations which dictate only profitable
production clashing with the unmeet needs of the masses.  This theory
accounts for modern capitalism, but it also carries with it the
promise of a revolution and a socialist future. This is too much
explosive baggage for the bosses. So what theories do they offer to explain
their crisis-ridden system?

The most obvious  is the revival of Keynesianism by other names
all of which see the need for the state to moderate the worst
excesses of the market. Robert Reich calls this 'the third way'.
Anthony Giddens  and John Gray spout rotund post-modern phrases.
Derrida talks about a 'new international' by which he means controls
on finance capital.   All echo the calls of  George Soros to found
new international insurance companies that can regulate hot money
so that it does not generate a collapse into anarchy. Former  free
marketeers are quick to call on the state as soon as they face
personal bankrupcy. The holdouts are the New Right fanatics who have been
leading the US charge to dominate the world by means of free trade
and capital flows. But they are now in a minority.

The   'third way' theorists don't want their solution to be seen as a
retreat to Keynesian state regulation so they dream up new names. But
as JK Galbraith said recently, what's the difference?  If state
institutions intervene in the market to correct what are seen as bad
investements, then that is Keynesianism. Keynes reckoned that the
capitalists left to themselves would not invest in production but
would hoard of speculate unproductively. It seems to be the
consensus that that is the root of the problem. Yet the solution is
somehow 'new'.

Once we get that far, it is easy to show that the new Keynesianism
dressed up as the 'third way' is no solution.  It is premised on the
assumption that the state can correct fundamental economic laws. In
particular, that the state can overcome bad investments, and steer
new investment in 'socially productive' areas.  As always, this is
treating a symptom  rather than its cause as if enlightened social goals can
be substituted for the law of value.  Only the Marxist theory can
explain why capitalist crises are necessary, despite everything
 that the state can throw at them.

Crises are not caused by too much capital badly invested. Of course
excess capital which cannot be invested productively at an average profit,
goes in search of spectulative returns, or faces sudden death by
devaluation. But what causes excess capital in the first place. Why
is there too much capital accumulated that cannot be invested at
sufficient rate of exploitation to get a good return? The answer is
not that investors are dumb, bankers stupid, or that the state
meddles with the market, though all of these may be true. The answer
is that certain inherent barriers prevent sufficient surplus value
from being extracted from productive workers to return a profit.

These inherent barriers are the result of capitalist social relations
which dictate the terms of production. In order to make a profit,
capitalists compete with one another, investing in labour-saving
techniques to reduce the labour-content, and therefore the cost of
their commodity. As a result they can produce a commodity more
cheaply than their competitors and gain a larger market share. Their
competitors usually follow, unless there is a monopoly, and the
advantage of the market leader is soon lost. It is interesting to
note that Robert Brenner's new analysis of the post-war economy in
the last New Left Review accepts the empirical effects of this but rejects
the inherent cause of the TRPF.

Such is the lawful nature of capitalist development, in which
capitalists compete to develop the technical forces of production to
stay in business. However, this development throws up necessary
limits to itself.  The most important is the rising costs of
machinery which does not create value, in relation to a relatively
deminishing labour force, which does create value, and which gets
more and more productive, driving more and more workers out of work.
The result is the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, and a fall in
productive consumption.

When these tendencies begin to bite, capitalism experiences crisis of
overproduction of capital in the form of commodities and money
capital  which is also expressed as a crisis of underconsumption.
Now, while Marxism explains the cause of the
crisis as a necessary fall in profits which causes overproduction,
Keynsian 'third way' theory looks only at the symptom -
underconsumption as the reason for falling investment/saving etc.
The Keynesian solution is therefore to boost investment and
consumption by redistributing income through state economic policy.

Yet because this 'solution' fails to address the cause, the disease
is not treated, and the crisis continues. In fact, by treating the
symptoms, the crisis deepens. This is because the state spending that
is necessary to reflate production and consumption, is a deduction
from profits which are already falling and cannot but intensify the
crisis and the restructuring necessary to restore profits.The significance
of this is that capitalism cannot avoid deeper and deeper crisis, each one
 more severe than the last, and each one producing more destruction of the
 forces of production, including the potential of nature and of the
labour-power of the vast majority of humanity.  Witness the collapse
into recession of East Asia, the former Soviet Union and the impending
collapse of Latin America under the sword of the law of value. Only the US
and
Europe have held out so far and their prospects are gloomy.

Marx's explanation reveals not only why the 20th century
is one of wars and depressions, punctuated by a mid-century boom of
20 years. It explains why the cost of that boom was the destruction
that preceded and followed it. Destruction not only of the
environment, but of economies, towns, cities, cultures and social
relations. Capitalism is revealed  as an historically revolutionary
society which exploded out of a static, time-bound feudal or tribal
society, but which having promised so much, now threatens to destroy
everything it has touched. Those who champion the promise in the
historic and universal interests of the proletariat must enter the
stage left under the banner of the Communist Manifesto. Who will
script such a scenario?

Dave B.


Charles Brown CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us 
Mon Sep 28 13:28:06 MDT 1998 

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Dave ,

My understanding is that Marx's theory of
crises also includes the logic that since
the capitalists class pays the workers 
a fraction of the value they produce, of
course, the mass demand of the 
working class as a whole is insufficient
to buy the total value that the w.c.
produces (which is the same
as the total value produced altogether)
 Thus, ultimately, the
capitalist class cannot realize the
full surplus value that they exploit.
This gap has to bite at some point.
There's the quote from Capital about
the ultimate cause of all crises.

Is this  part of your
theory of the business cycle, or
perhaps you have a critique of
this viewpoint ?

I was aware of the TRPF as
part of the theory , but this
list has clarified my understanding
of it, and your post continues
that lesson.

It seems that Marx's discussion of
the causes of the business cycle
are "fragmentary" in what he wrote.
Evidently, he gave a rather low
priority to this issue in his plan of
work as it was left to late and
he didn't get to it. I infer from this
that the cause of the business cycle
including crises is not critical for
today's Marxists either (though I am
not saying we shouldn't have it) , Why ?
Because the only cure for the business
cycle is to abolish capitalism. It can't
be reformed , as Dave B.'s post argues.
The business cycle cannot be abolished
under capitalism 
even with Marx's theory of the business
cycle, because the exploitation of
surplus value and paying workers for 
less than the value they produce and
the TRPF are inherent characteristics
or laws of capitalism; cannot be irradicated
without irradicating capitalism.
The history of the failure of Keynesianism,
the New Deal, the British Labor government 
and all social democracy demonstrate this.
Keynesianism uses a little Marxist business
cycle theory (inadequate mass demand). But
it can only, as Dave says, treat symptoms
thusly,

 And worse
these reforms blunt working class anger.
blah, blah, blah,  you've heard it before comrades.

And another point. Marxists are not for
abolishing capitalism only for its problems
during crises. Clinton's "it's the
economy stupid " is/was not a good 
economy for the working class. 
Boom periods have mass
unemployment, mass poverty, workplace
hazards and alienation, war, rollback
of prior reforms such as welfare in the U.S.
etc, etc. in capitalism. We don't claim that
if business cycle theory could ameliorate
boom-bust that we wouldn't advocate
socialist revolution.

Vive Le Manifeste !

Charles Brown

>From the market to the Marxit





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