[Marxism] A second quote from Marx and Engels on crises

[Charles Brown]

To resume where we left off,
but let me first say that
I am in agreement substantially
with your analysis here , comrade.
You have broken it down very nicely.
I did make reference to the anarchy of
production in my earlier posts, so
I agree with you that that is an
important component here. To resume

From: Waistline2 at xxxxxxx 



As important as this law of value is, it must be left to the side for a 
moment because bourgeois production shapes - contains and make operational, 
the 
law of value in a specific way. One of those ways, and perhaps its most 
important is the law called "anarchy of production." 

What drives this anarchy of production is capital itself; its morality as 
individualism; as a property relations and its institutional form operating as 
private property and the resultant competition for commodity purchasers. 
Anarchy of production consumes, houses and shapes consumption. However, one 
can 
see its operations in everyday American life. For instance, the purchase of 
an automobile or house, automatically means that other commodities cannot be 
purchased because of the fixed character of wages. Automotive producers would 
rather the consumer purchased an automobile versus a new house. 

What cause overproduction, which for Marxists defines itself as "production 
over the capacity of the market to consume as buying - consumption," is the 
property form, which directly results in anarchy of production. What determines 
the consumption capacity is wages. Wage rates or consuming capacity does not 
cause crisis of overproduction, although wage rates are part of the problem 
of capital in the workers eyes and life experience. Consumption capacity does 
not cause the crisis of overproduction because consumption does not 
determine "how much" of what is produced in the first place.

^^^^
CB: This is a nice point. However, _underconsumption_
is still an "ultimate" cause in your
anarchy of production analysis, if you
think about it. It's just that
the anarchy of production leads
to failure to consume some of
what is produced , because there
is no tailoring the amount of
production of society as a whole
to the amount of money that
the mass of consumers has.
But if you think about it,
the amount of money that the mass
of consumers has is restricted
by exploitation.  But I agree, and
have said in these debates that anarchy of production
is a part of the causal process too.

So, yes underconsumption inherent in exploitation
and anarchy of production. Unplanned production.

Again think about it further: why is the
production anarchic in the sense that
 the totality of capitalists producing at levels
individually without any sense of how much is
produced in the economy as a whole is not
matched 
to _demand_ of society as a whole ?

In part, too many, say shoes are
produced because the capitalists,
each individually just produces an
amount of shoes without considering
1)how many shoes other shoe producing
capitalists are producing; 2)
they produce an amount of shoes without
considering how many shoes the mass
of consumers wants. But total demand
for shows is not just determined
by the whims of the consuming masses.
It is also determined and limite,
restricted, by how much money the 
mass of consumers is paid in wages.

And because of what you refer to, correctly,
 as bourgeois property relations ( or some such),
the wage-labor/capital property relation, which
ultimately involves exploitation, the appropriation
of surplus value by the capitalist, we know
that if we look at all the enterprises , producers of
shoes, cars, refrigerators, televisions, computers,
clocks, chairs, desks, hats, soap, etc.,etc.,etc....
there will be more total number of these commodities
in value than the total amount of wages paid to
all the workers making all these, because all of them
produce a quantity of commodities for which 
they are not paid, i.e. surplus value or
a number of commodities corresponding to 
the surplus value exploited from them. So, the total
amount of wages , effective demand, available
to buy all the stuff produced will be less than
the total the stuff produced, no ? It is inherent
in Marx's exploitation/surplus value logic
that the working masses produce more than
they are paid enough to buy.