[Marxism] Marx was a "restricted consumptionist"

["Charles Brown" <charlesb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

S. Artesian 

Charles,

I never said poverty had nothing to do with the crisis, or ultimate crisis 
of capitalism. 

^^
CB: Just a thought: I don't take the 
word "ultimate" in the quote to refer
to the "ultimate" or "final" crisis of
capitalism.

^^^
 I stated that the inability of the workers to expand their 
consumption; the restricted consumption of workers was not the source of the 
problems, predicaments, crises of capitalist accumulation. 

^^^
CB: I'd say the words
 "ultimate cause" implies that 
Marx thinks that
restricted consumption is
 a source of capitalist problems.
It's a sort of irony. On one level
restricting wages is , of course,
what the capitalists want. But, it
has unexpected consequences.

^^^^

^^^
 I stated that 
Marx clearly locates the historical limits of capital in the falling rate of 
profit;
^^^
CB: Not to be picky, but where does
 he attribute the historical limits of 
capital to the FROP. Do you mean by
historical limits, the periodic 
crises ?

It's not exactly a "falling rate of profit", 
as if the rate of profit just 
continuously
falls. It is the law of the
 tendency of the
rate of profit to fall. The 
law includes
the tendency, and the 
countervailing
tendencies. The countervailing
measures can cause the rate of
 profit to go up, net.

^^^^^


 that he finds the source of capitalist crisis in overproduction--  
which is nothing other than the overproduction of the means of production 
unable to exploit wage-labor at a sufficient intensity.
^^^
CB: I think it's pretty well accepted
that Marx does not give a clear statement
 like this that could be construed as a 
theory of the business cycle and crises.
His ideas are scattered through a couple of
 volumes, and don't constitute a definite 
statement like you say above
(See "Does Marx have a theory of the 
business cycle ?" by R. Fictenbaum)
^^^^

I stated that Marx was not a restricted consumptionist in his analysis of 
those historical limits of capital, its structural and secular tendencies 
towards declining profits, insufficient rates of exploitation.

^^
CB: Well, the words " poverty restricted consumption
of the masses, etc." are his right there
in Vol. III where he is analyzing the
historical limits of capital etc. . Those
words didn't come from me, but from
Marx. So, your statement above seems,
preliminarily ,incorrect

^^^

You can play as many word games as you like--

^^^
CB: So can you (smile)

^^^^
 "When did you stop beating 
your wife" 

^^^
CB: I never beat my wife (smile)

^^^
 or like David Stockman, classify ketchup as a vegetable, 

^^^
CB: More of a sort of vitamin that'
 helps prevent prostate cancer. but 
I don't think Stockman knew that.

^^^
but 
that doesn't make the lunch any more nourishing.

^^^

But if restricted consumption is the ultimate cause of every capitalist 
crisis, then you should  be able to explain capital's cycles, its 
oscillations based on that consumption.

^^^
CB; Not really. Not only that. You
can't predict capital's cycles , it's oscillations
based on
the FROP.  You can't meet your own
test here.
^^^^^

^^^^
  You refuse to do so, 

^^^^
CB: I say it can't be done. You refuse 
to do so
Marx never claimed to be able to 
do so either.

^^^^
which says a 
lot about how much confidence you have in your own belief.  

^^
CB: And you in yours

^^^^
And no, simply 
showing that the value of the production of goods exceeds personal income 
does not establish that restricted consumption is the cause of a crisis--  

^^^^
CB: It's an argument for it.

^^^

you would have to show the differentials, the variations, and why such 
variations at times accompany expansions, and why the same variations at 
other times accompany contractions. You would have to explain why at times 
there is a crisis, and at times there is no crisis.

^^^
CB: You are talking about what
you call a "trigger". I don't take
ultimate cause to mean the 
"trigger" for any given crisis. It is the 
underlying contradiction that results in
a crisis in combination with other causes
and concatenations in any given crisis.

^^

I'm not confusing political crisis with economic crisis.  It was Marx who 
clearly stated that at that moment when the means of  production come into 
conflict with the relations of production an era of revolution is 
inaugurated.  So if the conflict finds its ultimate source in restricted 
consumption, you need to show how the revolt against the relations of 
production is in fact based on restricted consumption.

^^^
CB: Duh. Of course, comes _the_ revolution
 because of the  poverty and
restricted consumption of the masses.
Most cycle crises are not the revolution,
so this seems to be mixing apples
and oranges.

^^^

I am absolutely saying that the events I listed can be explained through 
analysis of profit, profitability, the exchange of capital and wage-labor, 
the growth of the means of production and the conflict between means and 
relations of production.  
^^^
CB: You are saying it can, but you
can't do said explanation.

^^^^^^


 That's what Marxist historical analysis is.  Try 
reading Trotsky's Results and Prospects, History of the Russian Revolution; 
or Marx's 18th Brumaire and Class Struggles in France.

The origin and the driver of the Russian Revoluton was not a slogan for 
bread, it was the growth of the means of production, on an international 
scale and national scale, with Russian agricultural, the relations of land 
and labor, so archaic as to circumscribe the means of production, limit the 
domestic market, and exacerbate the overproduction of capital.   WW 1 was 
the trigger for that revolution.  Do you think underconsumption produced 
WW1?

^^^
 CB:  WWI was the imperialists' 
war.  From the standpoint of 
the working classes, WWI 
produced the Russian Revolution
 because of the death and 
destruction it wreaked among 
the workers and peasants.  
This slaughter from the 
standpoint of the capitalists
 is destruction of variable 
capital. From the standpoint 
of the working classes , it is 
sort of an ultimate form of 
"poverty and restricting their consumption". When you're 
dead , your consumption is 
absolutely restricted and
 you are absolutely poor.

^^^^^


But all in all, it's probably not worth discussing this with you as you 
would much rather spin words, avoid answers, and pretend you're in a 
courtroom trying to build a case for appeal on technical grounds.

^^^
CB: Poor thing. You get mixed up
when you think a lot.









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