Re: capitalism's expansion vs. limits

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 23/06/01 12:16 -0700, Jim Devine wrote:

>  my point was only that Marx's theory wasn't very good. I'm not going to
> get into all that argument here, but I agree with the literature's
> almost-consensus. That does not mean that I reject the capitalist
> tendency toward crisis, though, as I noted in my original message. My
> point is that the capitalist tendency toward crises causes repeated
> crises rather than automatic breakdown.

I am not sure if this is the criticism you are making of Marx's theory but
the following passage in the Manifesto suggests that crises are a mechanism
by which the system adjusts and continues:

(perhaps a bit like earthquakes adjusting the pressures between the
tectonic plates)

"And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by
enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces ..."

Increasingly scarce oil or water will lead to the destruction of capital
(dead and living) in sectors of the economy relying on relatively cheap oil
and water. It will be reinvested in new sectors of the economy which can
make oil and water available at a higher exchange value, relative to the
total exchange value of commodity-producing human society.

Jim's post, on which Patrick was commenting, seems to make essentially this
same point about the destruction of uncompetitive capital. I do not know if
Jim is saying that Marx explicitly argued in Volume III that the rising
organic composition of capital led to an automatic (and permanent) break
down. A reference would be important if Jim is saying Marx really did this,
as opposed to arguing extensively from one side of a dialectical analysis
which must be placed in the context of all of his writings.

Of course in a society which is coming up to saturation point in using
certain limited natural resources less of the total social product  comes
directly from applying labour power to raw materials which exist as use
values naturally in the environment. A higher proportion of the total
product of the society will be devoted to the means of production. In that
sense the organic composition of capital will continue to rise, but with
each crisis a proportion of dead labour will be destroyed as capital, and
the cycle of capitalist accumulation will pick up again in a
self-organising self-perpetuating system.

The environmental limit imposed on capitalism, I suggest, is not that this
will stop the cycle of capitalist accumulation permanently. It is that
increasing concern with the environment will increasingly force into
collective consciousness the need even for capitalists to consider what is
a highly complex social system explicitly as a social system, and not just
the happy product of the blind workings of private ownership of the means
of production. This will erode the concept of bourgeois right as a
satisfactory legal basis of society. It will force closer alliances between
the working people and the macro planning of finance capitalism. That is
the riddle now, about how capitalism prepares the ground for socialism. But
without struggle the dominant class character of capitalism will not fall,
and it will not cease to be capital.
It may cease to be capital when no one and no limited corporation can own
any means of production as of absolute right, including land, but is at
most someone with a license to manage it in a way accountable to the whole
of the society. Increasingly complex information systems permit greater
social feedback and accountability without treating all individuals as
identical.

The ground is laid therefore for a push towards socialism faster than we
might expect, but it must be on a global basis, so the incremental step to
change is rather high. That is why we must embrace global reforms
enthusiastically and overcome an aversion to them.

Chris Burford

London