[Marxism] Marx was a "restricted consumptionist"

[S. Artesian]

I think Steve has also answered Matthew's theoretical interpretation in his 
previous post on Marx's anti-underconsumptionism.

Matthew's analysis of the origins of the current predicament of capital is 
somewhat off the mark; and a miss is as good as a mile.  I think part of the 
problem with Matthew's analysis is that, while claiming there is no point in 
parsing Marx, he does exactly that, parse Marx in order to separate, 
segment, limit Marx's analysis of the overproduction of capital, of the 
FROP, to *production* and then claim that production is only one aspect of 
capital with with rent and interest being separate, autonomous, and not 
governed, and perhaps not even linked to the rate of profit.

If I have misinterpreted Matthew's argument, I apologize.  If not, all I can 
say is-- baloney. The falling rate of profit is not "limited" to capitalist 
production; it is the defining characteristic of capitalist ACCUMULATION. 
Consequently it must first manifest itself in, as Steve states, a crisis in 
circulation, as circulation is the arena for the realization of profit 
aggrandized via wage-labor; as circulation is the arena where the private 
property of production must obtain and achieve some portion of social value.

Matthew compounds this mistake when it is translated into his  analysis of 
financialization which finds that, lo and behold, the current crisis is, no 
surprise, actually a result of underconsumption as workers cannot "service 
the interest on their wages borrowed on future earnings, aka 'consumer 
credit.' "

Matthew needs to look a bit deeper into the origins of the current 
predicament-- a look that tells us:

1.  The recovery after the 2001-2003 recession was based on reduced wages 
for workers, with wages shrinking as a portion of the national income.

2.  That the explosion in asset-backed lending by banks and financial 
institutions corresponds to deep restrictions industry placed upon itself in 
the areas of capital expenditures and fixed asset replacement. The cash and 
cash flows coursing through the economy were not tapped for industrial 
expansion.  Thus the bankers turned heavily to asset backed vehicles.  The 
financialization is a direct response of industry's offsets, or at least 
stem, the decline in the rate of profit

3.  Number 2 above is the response to the over-investment, 
over-accumulation, over-production of the 1992-2001 period, a period that in 
no way shape or form exhibits "underconsumption"; that was marked by real 
wage increases;  that did directly exhibit a rise, and then decline in the 
rate of profit, or as the US Dept of Commerce likes to call it-- rate of 
return on investment.

4. The notion that somehow consumer debt/credit is the immediate cause of 
this crisis is nothing but the complement, the opposite identity,  on a 
"popular" scale, of the idea that speculation and speculators are the root 
of all evil.

5. The current collapse in financialization corresponds to a) a resumption 
of capital spending by US industry in late 2005, through 2006, and 2007  AND 
b) a real increase in wages -- and wages paid to production workers-- in 
2006 and 2007; in short the financialization too meets its end in the 
tendency of the rate of profit to decline.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matthew Russo" <russo.matthew9 at gmail.com>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 3:30 AM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Marx was a "restricted consumptionist"