Re: Jim D.'s Micro Marx

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 09/15/00 05:02PM >>>
At 02:45 PM 9/14/00 -0700, you wrote:
>I see a big part of Marx's crisis theory as the build up and eventual
>destruction of fictitious capital -- both a micro and a macro process.
>More like vol. 3 than vol 1.

Of course, Marx's theory is both macro and micro. I'd think of it in terms
of Lewin & Lewontin's excellent summary of dialectics in the afterword of
their DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST: the whole makes the parts, while the parts
make the whole, as part of a dynamic process. Macrosocietal structures
determine the characters of the individual participants (given their
natural bases), while the micro-level actions of the participants can
either help reproduce the structure over time or lead to (r)evolutionary
(qualitative or quantitative) changes.

((((((((((((((((

CB: I wonder whether it is pertinent to this thread that Marx sees the microlevel unit  or individual firm as planning for itself ; all of the individual plans are not coordinated on the macro level , where there is anarchy. This anarchy at the macro level eventually causes crisis on many individual microlevels, disrupting many private plans.

On the other hand, Marx notes the ever increasing division of labor or socialization of the technical productive process. So, the higher and higher technique and production  at the micro or individual firm level is significantly due to the technical integration at the macro level, such as world cars.

I guess I should throw in, for Marx , the basic contradiction of capitalism is the private (micro) nature of appropropriation and the social (macro) nature of production.