[14. The Contradiction Between the Impetuous Development of the Productive Powers and the Limitations of Consumption Leads to Over-production. The Theory of the Impossibility of General Over-production Is Essentially Apologetic in Tendency]
The term overproduction is misleading, because, under capitalism, there is no overproduction of products, only overproduction of commodities. The requirement of capital to produce profit restricts output to less than it would be if workers produced to meet their needs.
“The limits to production are set by the profit of the capitalist and in no way by the needs of the producers. But over-production of products and over-production of commodities are two entirely different things. If Ricardo thinks that the commodity form makes no difference to the product, and furthermore, that commodity circulation differs only formally from barter, that in this context the exchange-value is only a fleeting form of the exchange of things, and that money is therefore merely a formal means of circulation—then this in fact is in line with his presupposition that the bourgeois mode of production is the absolute mode of production, hence it is a mode of production without any definite specific characteristics, its distinctive traits are merely formal. He cannot therefore admit that the bourgeois mode of production contains within itself a barrier to the free development of the productive forces, a barrier which comes to the surface in crises and, in particular, in over-production—the basic phenomenon in crises.” (p 527-8)
Ricardo, in his quotes from Smith, recognises that, at the same time that the bourgeoisie enjoys a limitless desire for an expanding range of use values, the workers are restricted to necessaries, and are thereby excluded from a large mass of the commodities they produce. This was even more so the case in ancient societies, under slavery. The total amount of wealth produced was less, but was shared amongst a much smaller number of exploiters, so that its extent appeared greater. They had little idea of what to do with it, so a lot of it lay idle as treasure stores. Very little of it was converted into capital.
There is a similarity with modern Britain. The Tory government continually brag about the high level of employment, whilst arguing that one reason for it is the low wages that workers have to accept to obtain it. In other words, the implication is that the workers should be grateful for allowing themselves to be exploited so as to be in employment. Of course, under slavery there is always full employment! Its not of much benefit to the slave, compared to the slave owner.
“Although, therefore, there was no over-production among the ancients, there was over-consumption by the rich, which in the final periods of Rome and Greece turned into mad extravagance. The few trading peoples among them lived partly at the expense of all these essentially poor nations. It is the unconditional development of the productive forces and therefore mass production on the basis of a mass of producers who are confined within the bounds of the necessary means of subsistence on the one hand and, on the other, the barrier set up by the capitalists’ profit, which [forms] the basis of modern over-production.” (p 528)
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