From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Fri Nov 04 2005 - 13:05:48 EST
On Fri, 4 Nov 2005 11:35:49 -0500 Fred Moseley <fmoseley@MTHOLYOKE.EDU> wrote: > 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. Yes, I agree with you as you know from this post I sent in your support against Jim Devine on pen-l in January 2002: >Fred was obviously not abstracting one aspect--difficulties > in the *production* of surplus value--to exclusion of the others. > > He suggested that difficulties in production could then compound > problems in the *realization* of surplus value. > > Jim's call for holisim implied too exclusive an abstraction by so > called orthodox marxists of only one part of the concrete capitalist > totality (the production part), but Fred was not failing to return to > problems in the realization of surplus value. He said, as someone who > understands Marx profoundly, that the real difficulties in the > realization of surplus value could be best understood after the > difficulties in production were first grasped. > > That is, Fred and Marxists argue that in order to understand capital > one must first abstract production, not begin with the relations of > exchange as bourgeois economists do. Then one can abstract from the > capitalist totality the process of the realization of surplus value. > It's a matter of ordering, not a matter of excluding. > > If one just calls for holism, then one cannot advance in the > theoretical understanding of the concrete capitaist totality because > you take all elements as jumbled together as they already are. That > is the problem with holism that seems to be much vaunted on this list. > > Abstraction of parts and aspects has to be made for intensive > analysis. Fred proceeds in a Marxian way, Jim D does not. Again this > is not to personalize the argument but to clarify the theoretical > differences so that we can have a theoretical, rather than a > personal, debate. OK, then, you Fred further argue today: 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. On this issue I think Chris A and I are arguing against you about the reality of universals, capital's perverse tendency to conform to Hegel's ontology. If I gave an average height for a population, there is no such thing as the population in general and the average height. But capital thingifies such abstractions: capital in general and the average rate of profit are real things. You seem to be holding on to the third of my four definitions of capital in general. I agree with Chris about my fourth def. > 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 Rakesh
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