Marx's theory of the business cycle, concentration and centralisation, organic changes in the structure of production (loosely capital deepening) and misery was not simply based on what Marx observed in Manchester or early British capitalism generally (indeed Paul suggested that capital was arguably not even the dominant mode of production in Britian when Marx wrote) but what he thought the tendencies were of the most advanced, most developed and even most mixed capitalist systems. That is, Marx's theory cannot explain the specifics of each crisis in terms of its duration or location (though it seems to me that the driving force of the Asian crisis is the stagnation of Japanese capital which led to the covering of the NICs with cash and the hollowing out of their export markets--but again it was the vulnerability of that mighty techno oriental power to overaccumulation that leaves Marxist, unlike James Fallows and Alan Blinder, unsurprised). So Marx's theory does serve as an important theoretical critique of the thesis of the stabilization of capitalism in its strongest, oldest or most developed points. This does not mean that Marxists could have predicted thirty years ago that crisis would have been deeper in Japan than Germany or the US in 1998 but it does rob the mighty of their sleep. Or to put it another way Marx's theory remains the most dangerous missle ever fired at the heads of the mightiest bourgeoisie. For example, see Mattick Srs Critique of One Dimensional Man.
So yes the theory of the economic laws of motion is place and time specific; it is specific to the most advanced capitalist countries in their highest, not their earliest, stages of development. Marx was ahead of his time, so far ahead that he was not really understood until Grossmann reconstructed his crisis theory in 1927-29. To be that far ahead of one's time, one must stop looking at capital as it appears (for example, it appears that mercantile and industrial enterprises both produce profit) just as it was important--as Paul put it emphatically--to stop looking at the heavens to understand the real motion of the planets.
yours, rakesh
On Mon, 28 Dec 1998, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Rakesh Bhandari wrote:
>
> >d. Doug misses Paul's argument that the inspectors' reports of
> >factory conditions served as
> >confirmation of tendencies Marx was able to theorize due to the power of
> >abstraction he employed. The way Doug puts it, one would think Capital was
> >simply a description of early industrial capitalism, not a theory of its
> >laws of motion.
> >
> >e. Paul's argument--as I understood it--was that while by itself Marx's
> >theory provides little assistance in understanding why the crisis broke
> >out in Thailand in a certain market on a certain date, it does illuminate
> >the general limits and crisis tendency of the world capitalist system as a
> >whole, though it cannot explain well the relative fortunes of single
> >capitalists or even nations over the rest.
>
> We've been over this territory lots of times before. My reaction to d) is
> that Capital is both things, the empiricism and the theorizing, in fruitful
> interrelation. My reaction to e) is that it's so vague as to be useless. So
> capitalism has crisis tendencies at some time and some place. Well, yes it
> does, but why do they break out where they do and when?
>
> I think that kind of theorizing is often found with an abstract, maximalist
> politics - unless you do the revolution whole hog and worldwide, there's
> nothing you can do at all.
>
> Abstracting from nations and states is madness. Capital would be nowhere
> without its states, and capitalism plays itself out across space. That's
> why I brought up David Harvey in our earlier exchange, Rakesh - capitalism
> plays itself out globally but in countless local manifestations. How can
> you theorize capitalism without theorizing space and place?
>
> Doug
>
>