From: Fred Moseley (fmoseley@MTHOLYOKE.EDU)
Date: Fri Nov 04 2005 - 11:35:49 EST
On Tue, 25 Oct 2005, Rakesh Bhandari wrote: > Yes but what begins as an assumption > comes to be considered for all practical purposes an attribute > of reality unless one shows herself why the assumption is untenable > In your present reading of Marx he seems to have never got > around to relaxing the S=D assumption in his reconstruction > of the concrete, for his principal aim was > the explanation of the source and forms of surplus value, and > that exposition required the strict assumption of S equaling D. > > Marx is thus made *de facto* a prisoner of > Say's Law, and the Keynesians will all be too happy > to lump Marx in with the rest of the classical economists. > But as Andrew T rightly suggested, Marx did attempt to show the > barriers to S equalling D in the reproduction schema, and Marx's > assumption of supply creating its own demand was necessary to show > that even on this assumption, a shortage of surplus value would > obtain that would then manifest itself as an excess of commodities > on the market. This then led him to consider how accumulation > could at times more or less solve the realization problem and how > at other times it would not. That is, Marx did not believe that > capitalism was haunted by a permanent underconsumption crisis. > Its periodicity had to be explained. > Marx's principal aim was thus not the explanation of surplus > value as such and its mediated forms but the laying bare > of the economic laws of motion of capital, i.e. the tendency > towards crisis and catastrophe. He was not a static thinker > a la equilibrium economics but a dynamic thinker of positive > feedback and dialectical change. Even Raymond Boudon > would agree with that, I think! > As I suggested, you seem to have moved away from Mattick's > interpretation of the aims and argument of > Marx's magnum opus in your own recent interpretative work. Is that a > fair characterization? > I am worried about this because I thought you were the only > major economist who followed Mattick. Rakesh, I do not think the question is either/or (either production-distribution of surplus-value OR crises), nor even a matter of priorities (which is more important), but rather a matter of which comes first in a theory based on the method of levels of abstraction. I certainly agree, as I have said in recent posts, that Marx showed in Capital that "Say's law is absurd" and that the equilibrium conditions of reproduction are satisfied "only by chance", etc. I also agree with you that his theory of the falling rate of profit is based on the assumption that S = D and yet shows how a shortage of surplus-value and a realization problem results. However, his theory of the production and distribution of surplus-value assumes no realization problem. I do not think I have "moved away from Mattick" at all. As I have said, I learned from Mattick the crucial methodological assumption of the determination of the total surplus-value prior to its distribution. But I agree that my emphasis at the present time is somewhat different from Mattick's. Right now, I am emphasizing more Marx's theory of the distribution of surplus-value in Volume 3, and especially the "transformation problem", partly because the recent publication of the entire Manuscript of 1861-63 has made possible a better understanding of Marx's theory of the distribution of surplus-value in Volume 3. I think I have something new to offer on these issues. But this does not mean that I disagree with Mattick's emphasis on the falling rate of profit and crises and the "limits of the mixed economy', etc., nor do I think that these subjects are any less important. I don't consider myself a "major economist", but I definitely consider myself a follower of Mattick. Comradely, Fred
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