[PEN-L:3931] Re: subsumption questions, round 2

[knowware@xxxxxxxx (Tom Walker)]

Angela wrote,

>what I'm still perplexed about is why this is happening now. does it
>have something/everything to do with the political limits to the
>working day being subdued, by the collapse of the USSR, the end of of
>the cold war, etc.... or, what is the crisis (not the apocalyptic
>one, but the intrinsic one) that makes this 'reversion' possible?

My view is that one has to go beyond the distinction between formal and real
subsumption for the answer. I would argue that Marx already did go one step
beyond that distinction in the published text of Capital, describing a third
'moment' of subsumption, one that I would call social subsumption.

Further, I think there's another step or three that Marx didn't take, which
has to do with the subsumption of the labour processes in circulation -- or
to put it another way, the subsumption of the function of the capitalist.
Add it all up and I get six logical "stages" in the development of
capitalism, five of which have been realized historically and one of which
is currently being furiously _resisted_ by the bourgeoisie.

What I am saying is that capitalists as a class now pose the greatest
obstacle to the continued development of capitalism as a system -- truly a
question of the relations of production posing a barrier to the continued
development of the forces of production. In this context "reversion" is BOTH
rational in terms of the narrow class interests of the bourgeoisie and
irrational in terms of the survival and development of the system. This is
why, by the way, I can offer a "prosperity covenant" as both a higher stage
in the development of capitalism and an evolutionary transition to
socialism. Call me neo-revisionist.

http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm

It has occurred to me often that my hypothesis could be wrong, even
puzzling, but I can't quite figure out why it seems to slip past without
comment.


regards,

Tom Walker