[Marxism] Regarding Underconsumption 1

["Charles Brown" <charlesb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

johnaimani 


Greg McDonald wrote:

        "I think underconsumption is an effect, not a cause."

Comrade Artesian is correct, I think, when he proposes Marx' theory as 
"over-productionist":

"(O)verproduction as overproduction of the means of production as 
capital,required to, but unable to, sufficiently exploit wage-labor at the 
required intensity to offset the fall in the rate."

But does this mean, on the basis of Marxian economics, that there is no 
basis for an under-consumption as a factor entering into the tendency of the 
rate of profit to decline, which itself is the signature defect, the 
Achilles heel, of capitalism according to Marx?

^^^
CB: From the standpoint of the
 bourgeoisie, the signature 
defect of capitalism may be 
the FROP. And of course it
 is the bourgeoisie who 
"trigger" crises by cutting 
production.  Production
 becomes "over" from the 
standpoint of the bourgeoisie,
because their rates of profit
fall. 
 The bourgeoisie don't cut 
production because they see
 poverty and restricted 
consumption in the working class. 
That's not the immediate cause
or "trigger".   

However, partisans of the 
working class ( supposedly us)
 look at a crisis from the
 standpoint of the working class.
 Our ultimate solution is 
socialism; expropriate the
 expropriators.  Supposedly, 
we all agree on that. Under 
discussion here is not that 
revolutionary solution, but 
impliedly reforms short of revolutionary
change.   Working 
class partisan, reformist responses
 to crises are better based on
 the more fundamental cause -
 poverty and restricted 
consumption of the masses - 
because that implies giving 
money to the masses as mass 
consumers - in other words,
 Left Keynesian proposals. 
The aspect of the causal chain 
which is focused on the falling 
rate of profit implies reforms 
focused directly 
on raising the rate of 
profit, persuading the bourgeoisie
 to crank production back up 
( see production as "just right"
 and not "over") by raising 
their profit rates.

So, in the context of the current 
crisis, reform proposals are
 best based on the fact that 
even though poverty and
 restricted consumption didn't
 "trigger" it, giving money to 
the masses is a way to get out 
of it .   The truth of Keynesian 
reforms is based on this truth
 in Marxist logic.

Of course, Keynesian reforms 
are inadequate  as a "permanent" 
solution. And Keynesian reforms
 will be distorted and destroyed 
with the bourgeoisie persisting 
in power, as has happened in 
the last 30 years, when the New
 Deal and Great Society/War
 on Poverty Keynesian reforms 
were distorted and destroyed 
by the Neo-liberal bourgeois 
revival.  But 
Keynesian
 reforms aimed at repairing 
under-consumption are better
 than "reforms" trying , somehow, to 
directly "raise
 the profit rate back up" 
 as implied by focus on the 
FROP level of explanation. 

Or what reforms or other
government action do 
"over-productionists" propose
 in the current recession/depression 
other than giving money to the 
masses of the working class to
abate their poverty and free their
restricted consumption ?





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