[Marxism] Communist conspiracy

[Charles Brown <cdb1003@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: Waistline2@xxxxxxx 

From: "S. Artesian" 
China has done nothing to "undermine" the US economy. Capitalism undermines 
itself, but the Chinese economy has contributed nothing but 
profits....unless of course you think overproduction is a communist 
strategy.

^^^^^
CB: Overproduction ? How does a fall
in the rate of profit cause overproduction ?

Comment 


Surely you jest. 

^^^
CB: Well, lets see what you have
to say, and have some fun in the bargain
;>)
^^^^^

What causes overproduction is the bourgeois property form, expressed as 
anarchy of production. 

^^^^^
CB: Yeah, all the companies
produce in the blind, without
an overall plan related to
how much all the consumers
want or can afford. In other
words, they produce without
regard to how much money
the mass of buyers have.

 So, this
anarchy of production means
more is produced than can
be bought, consumed, no ?

But what does overproduction
have to do with crises ? Why
would overproduction cause the
capitalists' profit rate to 
fall ? Answer me that, (and
not in jest;smile)

^^^^^

The question is not "how does a fall in the rate of profit cause 
overproduction," but rather "what causes the rate . . . of profit . . . to 
fall. 

^^^^
CB: Why that's right ! But your buddy
Sartesian doesn't say that. He just 
says the cause of crises is the fall
in the rate of profit. Which nobody
doubts. We all agree that the
capitalists cut production, destroy
capital, because their rates of 
profit have fallen. Sartesian does
empirical research showing the rate
of profit falling before crises. But 
we all assume that to be true.
That's proving the trivial.  The only
thing capitalists are concerned with
is the bottom line. 

Did you think I was saying that
the capitalists observe the
poverty and restricted consumption
of the masses and that _observation_
caused the capitalists to cut
production, layoff people, and
destroy capital ? Is that what
you thought ?


The question ,as you say, is
_why _does the rate of profit fall ?
Sartesian , you (?), Steve Palmer like
to say it's not because of underconsumption

I guess you all say it's because of the
rise of the organic composition of capital.
is that correct ? But then what Sartesian
should show with empirical study is that
the occ rises just before the rate of
profit falls each time.

Myself, I wonder why Marx and Engels
refer to crises as crises of OVERPRODUCTION.
This implies that it is overproduction
that causes the rate of profit to fall,
dont' you think ?

^^^^^^^^


Because it is a rate, this fall is in relationship to something.

^^^^^
CB: Or a relationship between two things.
surplus value / capital spent ;or something like
that. I have to look in _Capital_

^^^^^^

"How does an increase in production capacity and metabolizing + displacement 
of labor related to consumption," place matters on its feet rather than on 
its head. 
^^^^
CB: That's a mouthful. Wanna explain the meaning ?

^^^^^

The connections (interactivity) that is ever increasing productive capacity, 
(more accurately "manifestation of increased production capacity," i.e., 
increase in the density of dead labor, machinery and its enhancement), and 
wages, have been outlined by the government in a host of statistics for over a 
century. In fact Marx uses such statistics. How one understand and interpret 
the 
statistics divides Marxism from all other modes of economic theory.

^^^^^
CB: I think you refer to the increase in the Organic
Composition of Capital, the ratio of variable capital
to constant capital.

^^^^^ 

The theoretical essence of all social democracy, when stripped of its 
various national clothing and historical/cultural specificity is the clarion 
call 
to "raise the consuming capacity of the masses." This includes our modern day 
Republicans whose demand to ease the restricted consumption of the masses, 
proceeds from "programs" to directly increasing capital formation as tax cuts 
to augment - fatten, capital as profit; and increase its capacity to purchase 
labor power.

^^^^^^
CB: OK on Social Democracy;
Not Ok
on present day Republicans as Social
Democrats. That they say
they are creating jobs doesn't mean
they are claiming to ease the restricted
consumption of the masses.

^^^^
 This in turn is alleged to increase the consumption of paid 
labor.

^^^^
CB: No Republicans today to allege that.

^^^^^
 This is impossible because capital must pay the sum total of all hired 
labor, a wage - magnitude, below the sum total of value created.

^^^^
CB: Careful here. You are straying
from the Sartesian/Palmer line, right
over into that "one and only quote".

^^^^^ 

For instance cheapening the price of a basket of commodities

^^^^
CB: You mean necessities ?

^^^^^^
 - their 
production cost, cannot raise the consuming capacity of the masses, because the 
price of labor power must fall due to the very set of factors that cheapen the 
basket of commodities in the first place. Credit deepens not expand, the 
market. Then the inevitable crisis of capitalist consumption appears; and 
overshadow the 10,000 year old crisis of restricted consumption. 

^^^
CB: What's the "crisis of capitalist consumption" ?

^^^^^

The real issue is always the source (cause, taproot, genesis) of antagonism 
of the capitalist system, and the social consequences we are now 
experiencing. One can easily trace the sum total of social democratic thesis as 
political 
ideology and "interpretation of Marx," beginning with the concept of 
"restricted consumption" as the ultimate source of crisis, only to discover the 
same 
theoretical "confusion" - divergence, on the question of the state. If 
resolution of capital crisis takes place on the basis of unrestricting the 
consumption of the masses, then the state itself is not an immanent expression 
of 
the irreconcilability of class antagonism.

^^^
CB: Well, but a Social Democratic _reform_
is not a resolution of the irreconcilable
class antagonism. You didn't think I was
saying that a reform is a revolution, did you ?
Sorry if I confused you. But no, I'm not
saying  that a reform would end all crises.
Just that it's the Communist reform proposal
for ending _a_ given crisis. A Communist
reform is a Social Democratic proposal. Like
when Marx champions shortening the work
week as a reform.

^^^^^

 Class antagonism is not an 
abstraction but made manifest - springs from and expresses, property rights, 
rather 
than the historical phenomenon that is restricted consumption. 


^^^^^
CB: Sounds correct up to the point and 
if you mean that the
wage-labor/capital property relation
which is the bourgeois form of exploitation
gives rise to the class antagonism between
the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

You go astray when and if you think
the restricted consumption does not
derive from the exploitation in capitalism. 
That other modes have restricted consumption
doesn't mean that the bourgeois mode
doesn't have restricted consumption.

^^^^^

Property rights 
define the shape of production as reproduction on the basis - platform, of 
the bourgeois mode of commodity production.

^^^
CB: This is vague. The capitalist
mode is unique in that labor power
is a commodity and commodity production
becomes the general mode of all production.
In prior modes, commodity production was
only on the periphery and between
societies, not the main way of producing.

^^^^ 



The "theoretical divergence " and "misunderstanding" between Marxism and 
social democracy is over Chapter 1 Vol. 1 Capital and the meaning of the 
commodity form and the resultant anarchy of production. 


WL.

^^^^^
CB: I'm not misunderstanding none of Chapter 1, Vol. I
of _Capital_, nor the meaning of the commodity
and how anarchy of production arises in capitalism.

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