[Marxism] Marx was a "restricted consumptionist"

[S. Artesian]

The context is Volume 3 of  Capital where Marx is exploring the
reverberations of the tendency of the rate of profit to decline.

Charles has long used this single comment by Marx to raise high the banner
that reads OVERPRODUCTION = UNDERCONSUMPTION  when it is clear from the
entire thrust of Volume 3, and is clear explicitly, that Marx does not
identify overproduction as or with underconsumption, but rather
overproduction as overproduction of the means of production as capital,
required to, but unable to, sufficiently exploit wage-labor at the required
intensity to offset the fall in the rate.

Then what occurs... well, hell... let's hear what Marx himself says in Vol
3:
____________
"The periodical depreciation of existing capital - one of the means immanent
in capitalist production to check the fall of the rate of profit and hasten
accumulation of capital - value through formation of new capital - disturbs
the given conditions, within which the process of circulation and
reproduction of capital takes place, and is therefore accompanied by sudden
stoppages and crises in the production process.

The decrease of variable in relation to constant capital, which goes hand in
hand with the development of the productive forces, stimulates the growth of
the labouring population, while continually creating an artificial
over-population. The accumulation of capital in terms of value is slowed
down by the falling rate of profit, to hasten still more the accumulation of
use-values, while this, in its turn, adds new momentum to accumulation in
terms of value.
Capitalist production seeks continually to overcome these immanent barriers,
but overcomes them only by means which again place these barriers in its way
and on a more formidable scale.

The real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself. It is that
capital and its self-expansion appear as the starting and the closing point,
the motive and the purpose of production; that production is only production
for capital and not vice versa, the means of production are not mere means
for a constant expansion of the living process of the society of producers.
The limits within which the preservation and self-expansion of the value of
capital resting on the expropriation and pauperisation of the great mass of
producers can alone move - these limits come continually into conflict with
the methods of production employed by capital for its purposes, which drive
towards unlimited extension of production, towards production as an end in
itself, towards unconditional development of the social productivity of
labour. The means - unconditional development of the productive forces of
society - comes continually into conflict with the limited purpose, the
self-expansion of the existing capital. The capitalist mode of production
is, for this reason, a historical means of developing the material forces of
production and creating an appropriate world-market and is, at the same
time, a continual conflict between this its historical task and its own
corresponding relations of social production."

________

And there we have it:  the conflict between the means of production and the
relations of production.  The limit to capital as its need for
accumulation-- accumulation at a sufficient rate and mass to offset the
results of.....accumulation.

The problem with capitalist reproduction is not consumption.

But perhaps Charles can strengthen his positon by showing how in fact the
recent crises in capitalist reproduction have in fact been a product of its
barriers to consumption-- let's try a small crisis first-- say 2001-2003 and
how declining consumption triggered that crisis.  Then let's try a big one,
the current one, and show us how declining consumption, whe by every
measure, the US population was consuming their brains out, has triggered
that-- and remember we are talking about capitalism as a system, not a
particular industry, like auto, or a particular company, like Chrysler.










----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Picón Álvarez" <david at miradoiro.com>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2009 4:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Marx was a "restricted consumptionist"


>I don't have context for the quote either, but it seems clear to me that
>the
> reason why it can't be read as you suggest, is because the very nature of
> capitalist production entails the extraction of surplus from wage labour.
> While this remains the case, it is impossible for workers to consume the
> full value they produce (measured in labour time).
>
> --David.
>
>
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