Jerry,
With regard to your view of Lenin, a expressed below, I quote from his 'Essay on Karl marx' CW Vol21 p67
"..A rise in the productivity of labour implies a more rapid growth of constant capital as compared with variable capital. Inasmuch as surplus value is a function of variable capital alone, it is obvious that the rate of profit (the ratio of surplkus value to the whole capital, not its variable part alone) tends to fall.'
Now in Lenin the rise in the organic composition of capital is central to many of his polemics, so this Point IV of yours below about 'underconsumption' etc really doesn't stand up. EG 'On the so called market question', CW Vol I, about which I refered earlier, and 'A note on the question of market theory' CW Vol4, also the Dev of Cap in Russia. CW 3
There always seems to me to be a peculiar view about 'underconsumption' ....if there is a shortage of profits in relation to capital so far accumulated, then the motive for accumulation is blunted.This is in fact a lack of capitalistic employment of resources and so 'underconsumption' in relation to the existing mass of commodities including labour power awaiting sale. It is rather the explanation, and the content of 'underconsumptionism' that Engels and Marx were able to provide, an entirely different perspective which gives the word a new/ utterly different sense than the dreary lack of demand merchants. So when in his letters Engels refers to lack of demand he means something fundamentally different to our millionaire Keynes.
regards
paul B.
----- Original Message -----
From: gerald_a_levy
To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 12:42 AM
Subject: [OPE-L:7123] Re: Frederick Engels at Highgate Cemetary -- March l7, l883
Re David Y's [7l2l] :
> I would like to think that he could have been referring to the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall - 'the most important law of modern political economy and the most essential one for understanding the most complicated relationships. It is the most important law from an historical standpoint....' (Grundrisse p654 1953 German edition) <
Hi David. Thanks, as always, for your comments.
As you say, Engels _could have_ been referring to the LTGRPD.
Yet, as we know, the drafts for what became Volume 3 were
not published by Engels until after his death. Nor do we have
reason to believe that Engels read the drafts prior to Marx's
death -- do we? Nor do we have reason to believe that Engels,
prior to Marx's death, read the drafts for what were later published
as the _Grundrisse_ -- do we? Nor, of course, did Marx refer to
the LTGRPD as the "law of motion" of bourgeois society. However,
I will grant you that, _if_ you interpret "this work" to mean all of
_Capital_, then it is a reasonable possibility. It would, however,
make the remainder of what became Volume 3 somewhat of an
anti-climax (and Marx had a dramatic flair and the 'climax' of his
'stories' was generally reserved for the end.)
There have been a number of interpretations of what the "economic
law of motion" is. E.g. one author claimed that the General Law
of Capitalist Accumulation was for Marx "the Law of Motion of
Capitalist Society". What is most troubling about this interpretation
is that the author stated it as fact rather than identifying it as
speculative. The least the author could have done was to suggest
this as one possible interpretation -- and, even better, offer some
arguments for _why_ the GLCA should be understood as _the_
law of motion -- rather than merely putting forward such a bold,
unsubstantiated assertion as if it were self-evident. In the same
source, that author advised _others_ on "How to Teach Capital".
That author's name was Raya Dunayevskaya ("Outline of Marx's
Capital", Detroit, News and Letters Committee, l979, pp. 53-54;
originally published with the pseudonym of Freddie Forrest.)
> More important in the speech of Engels was the following:
For Marx was before all else a revolutionist. His real mission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the state institutions which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the modern proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own position and its needs, conscious of the conditions of its emancipation. Fighting was his element. And he fought with a passion...
The clause "in one way or another" is interesting -- and, I
think, quite accurate. It reflects how Marx at various points
in his life attempted to contribute in _various_ ways to the
revolutionary movement.
> His law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall has some bearing on this point - much of the discussion on Marx today seems to have none! <
Excuse me if you think you've already answered some of the
following questions in-print previously, but I think they are
important enough to ask anyway -- and may spark an interesting
discussion:
I. What exactly *is* the bearing of the LTGRPD to the mission of
overthrowing capitalism and the liberation of the working class?
II. In addition to being a part of a critique of political economy, is it
part of an implicit critique of *reformism*? Yet, doesn't such a
critique require for its fuller development a comprehension of the
state-form (something that Marx abstracted from in _Capital_)?
And, can't a critique of reformism be developed without grasping
the significance of the LTGRPD?
III. Put in the context of comprehending the dynamics of the current
crisis, don't we have to move _beyond_ a comprehension of the
LTGRPD as presented in Volume 3? Indeed wasn't Marx well aware
of these limitations? E.g. in Vol 3, Ch. l4, Section 2 Marx indicates --
in a short paragraph -- that a "reduction in wages below their value"
is "one of the most important factors in stemming the tendency for
the rate of profit to fall" yet "has nothing to do with the general
analysis of capital, but has its place in an account of competition,
which is not dealt with in this work". So how would you employ this
factor -- *along with others not discussed at length (or at all) in
_Capital_ by Marx* -- to comprehend the _current crisis_ and the
tasks of overthrowing capitalism and participating in the
self-emancipation of the proletariat which was, as Engels (and you)
reminded us, Marx's "real mission in life"?
IV. A follow-up question: as you are aware, Lenin (and the rest of
the Bolshevik theoreticians) didn't make much of the LTGRPD.
Indeed, in general, Lenin -- along with other Bolsheviks -- advanced
disproportionality and/or underconsumptionist theories of crisis
(see Richard B. Day's _The 'Crisis' and the 'Crash'_.) Yet, he -- along
with others -- made a revolution anyway. Wouldn't this seem to
suggest that a grasp of the LTGRPD is *not essential* from the
standpoint of Lenin's and Marx's "real mission in life" ?
In solidarity, Jerry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun Jun 02 2002 - 00:00:06 EDT