The commodity itself contains the contradiction of being both use value and exchange value. Commodity production and exchange creates the possibility of crisis because it represents the separation of production and consumption, of purchase and sale, and of use value and exchange-value. Moreover, money as means of payment contains a contradiction. Because capital is comprised of commodities, and because the circulation of capital itself thereby involves the circulation of commodities, and money, this possibility of crisis is inherent in the nature of capital itself.
But, the fact that this possibility of crisis is inherent within it does not, of itself, mean that crisis is inevitable, or tell us why this or that specific crisis occurred. Each crisis can only be explained individually, concretely, with reference to the specific conditions in which it occurred. The truth is always concrete, whilst the possibility of crisis is only an explanation of crisis in the abstract.
“This shows how insipid the economists are who, when they are no longer able to explain away the phenomenon of overproduction and crises, are content to say that these forms contain the possibility of crises, that it is therefore accidental whether or not crises occur and consequently their occurrence is itself merely a matter of chance.” (p 512)
If we attempt to explain any concrete crisis simply on the basis of abstractions, which only reveal the possibility of crisis, for example, the idea that credit creates the possibility of crisis, or the law of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall creates the possibility of crisis, this really takes us no further forward.
Credit is a constant feature of capitalism, and indeed existed prior to it. So, how can we explain the outbreak of any particular crisis by credit? Why did credit cause a crisis at point B, but not point A? The same with the Law of the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall. If the law of falling profits constantly operates as a long term tendency, why does it create a crisis at point B rather than A, particularly on a frequent and regular basis, with the average business cycle operating over a matter of around 5 years, whilst Marx said that the law took many years even to be manifest in any change in the rate of profit? More importantly, if the Law has created the potential for a crisis at point B, then why, as a constantly operating, long-term, and progressive law of decline, does it not create a continuing crisis, at C, D, E etc. rather than being interspersed with periods of stagnation, prosperity, and economic boom?
As Marx describes that law it is one that proceeds gradually over a very long period, and is much less than it is said to be. Moreover, he sets out why a fall in the value of fixed and circulating constant capital can neutralise it. He believed that the fall in those values was not adequate to offset the rise in the quantity of them employed, but that it was enough to neutralise any consequent fall in the rate of profit.
"It is an incontrovertible fact that, as capitalist production develops, the portion of capital invested in machinery and raw materials grows, and the portion laid out in wages declines. This is the only question with which both Ramsay and Cherbuliez are concerned. For us, however, the main thing is: does this fact explain the decline in the rate of profit? (A decline, incidentally, which is far smaller than it is said to be.) Here it is not simply a question of the quantitative ratio but of the value ratio...
If one worker can spin as much cotton as 100 [workers spun previously], then the supply of raw material must be increased a hundredfold, and this is moreover brought about only by the spinning-machine which enables one worker to control 100 spindles. But if simultaneously, one worker produces as much cotton as 100 workers did previously and one worker produces a spinning-machine whereas previously he produced only a spindle, then the ratio of value remains the same, that is, the labour expended in the spinning, [in the production of] the cotton and the spinning-machine remains the same as that expended previously in spinning, the cotton and the spindle...
"The cheapening of raw materials, and of auxiliary materials; etc., checks but does not cancel the growth in the value of this part of capital. It checks it to the degree that it brings about a fall in profit."
(Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 23)
So those who see it as a cause of crisis need to explain, how it results in crisis, and why this law operating continually over a long period results in crises at some times, but not at others.
If the answer to this latter question is that there are periods of rise in the rate of profit, and it is only when it turns down once more, this is still no answer, because we are still left with the question then of what causes the regular rises and falls in the rate of profit etc., rather than what causes regular crises. Resolution to the problem rather than being moved forward has been moved back, because we now have to provide the answer to the reason for these regular movements in the rate of profit, before being able to answer the question of the regular crises of overproduction.
Such solutions are no more satisfactory than the claim that crises are the result of underconsumption, because underconsumption is a constant feature of capitalism, yet crises only arise periodically. The same could be said of disproportionality. There is constant disproportion, and it is manifest in the movement of market prices, as demand and supply fail to balance. Indeed such fluctuations can even be seen in partial overproduction and underproduction in various spheres, without that spreading out into a general crisis of overproduction. Indeed, such disproportion and overproduction is a fundamental requirement for expanded reproduction.
No comments:
Post a Comment