From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Mon Apr 09 2007 - 00:44:29 EDT
Grossman argued that productivity growth as measured in a rising technical composition of capital tended to raise OCC in production but as the effects of productivity growth rippled through circulation the effect on the value composition of capital would prove not to be a mechanical registration of a rising OCC (see here is relaxation of the assumption of constant values in the course of accumulation) . Grossman argued that first we must isolate the effects of a rising OCC in production before figuring out its effects via circulation on the value composition of capital (there seems to be some similarity here to Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad Filho). It's not that the first tendency is necessarily more inherent to the capitalist system or more important in empirical terms than the latter tendency. It's that explanation, contra Aihara, is in fact stage based and by beginning with a rising OCC as a result of a rising TCC Marx is able to lay bare a tendency that he can then explain is modified or possibly neutralized or even reversed in terms of the indirect effects of this very process. Grossman's distinction is not between a pure and empirical capitalism. The entire theory is of a pure capitalism. It's a dialectical derivation of categories in the sense that the latter categories follow logically the prior ones. Which does not mean the logically posterior categories are less important empirically or less inherent to the concept of capital. Rakesh http://marxists.catbull.com/subject/japan/aihara/grossmann.htm#n10 There is also not that much need to discuss the "method of Marx" that Grossman has claimed to have "reconstructed." The simplification of Marx is based the position of the primary subject determined by strict logic and the particular connections. This is not a stage-based epistemology. Grossmann makes a distinction between "pure" and "empirical" capitalism, and then places the elements most favorable to collapse (such as the rise in organic composition) in "pure" capitalism and those elements unfavorable to collapse (such as a rise in the rate of surplus-value) in "empirical" capitalism, even though it should be treated the same way as the favorable elements. This is a feat that Marx did not accomplish. This method, according to Grossmann, is something that no one has perceived before, and certainly we will grant that he was the first to have perceived this. Still, there is no question that this is not the "method of Marx."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Apr 30 2007 - 00:00:16 EDT