1st objection: Grossmann develops no theory of geopolitics:
" With spatial fixes come important geopolitical changes in the alliances and internecine struggles that determine the precise form in which
devaluation is visited upon a particular region. From spatial fix you
get a theory of geopolitics. From G's work you get very little more
than one discrete example of a spatial fix."
The second half of Grossmann's conclusion, not translated in the English version, is an impressive, detailed critique of the possibilities of international stabilization, super imperialism and perpetual peace. That is, Grossmann's theory culminates in a theory of geopolitics as the highest expression of capitalist contradictions. He was vindicated by the course of events. He anticipates Harvey's ideas about imperialist war as the ultimate form of devaluation.
I took six years of German and have the German version of Grossmann's magnum opus with me, though really can't read it well any more--I began translating Grossmann's history of plantation slavery, a chapter completely left out of the English version. But my companion does read German (she's a real scholar) so I'll try to get something of a summary out but not for a while.
2. Grossmann/Mattick do not understand spatio-temporal displacement, esp in the form of consumer credit.
"But again it's the *spatio-temporal* character of that
displacement -- credit allowing consumption to occur now, unevenly
across geographical regions, to mop up overproduced commodities, and
s.v. to be extracted later to pay for it all -- that is important.
Did Mattick get to that at any stage?"
a. Mattick's theory of the mixed economy was exactly an analysis of the temporal displacment of crisis. See of course Marx and Keynes: the limits of the mixed economy. For him, the onset of the mid 70s stagflation was anticipated at the absolute height of the Keynesian hubris about having conquered the business cycle. He could not find a publisher for a decade, the book coming out in 1969.
b. no Mattick did not analyze what he did not live to see--the explosion of consumer debt which is not to be found in Harvey's Limits to Capital either, right? But we have Doug's recent LBO piece.
c. it is the very capacity of a sufficient mass of surplus value being extracted later which is the question that is at the core of Grossmann's and Mattick's theory.
3. continuing importance of classical Marxian countertendencies
> In work on Southern Africa, for instance, I've tried to borrow my
> doctoral advisor David Harvey's notions of temporal and spatial fixes
> (Limits to Capital, U.Chicago Press, 1982), which to some extent
> overlap with the classical Marxian countervailing tendencies
> (speed-up is extraction of absolute s.v., for example).
Indeed it is with this counter-tendency that Grossmann ends his first half of his two part conclusion. It is also not in the translation. However Kenneth Lapides has been working on it. See his new book Marx's Wage Theory in Historical Perspective (Prager, 1988). All citations there.
4. Grossmann ignores domestic dynamics of valorization and devalorization.
Again I am not with my books, but please see his analysis of the decadent British industrial structure in section on the counter-tendency on the opening up of low organic composition branches. You will see the exact dynamics to which to which you refer here.
5. Grossmann confines export of capital only to the circuit of imperialism.
False. see analysis of how real estate and the stock market mop up over accumulated capital. To this add Mattick's analysis of how govt induced production does the same and to what effect.
6. Grossmann dismisses Hilferding as a charlatan.
Absolutely false as well.
7. Patrick's own theoretical innovation in differentiating the functions of finance capital.
Seems most interesting. Look forward to comparing it the work in the recent issue of International Journal of Political Economy, David Harvey's brilliant chapter, Robert Guttmann's book on credit money. I need time.
8. Insufficient attention to the new dynamics in the credit system
> systems exacerbate the crisis), and few of the subtleties about how
> the rise of financial power also changes the terrain of accumulation
> (as we have seen since the late 1970s) -- which in turn, partly
> and very unevenly, exacerbates but in some respects also displaces
> (hence momentarily leveling) crisis tendencies.
Yes, the theory of credit must be developed.
9. capital is resilient.
> Right, but perhaps overemphasised, would you not admit, given the
> ability of the system to keep finding ways to temporally and
> spatially bail itself out, since speculation began bubbling during
> the 1980s?
Grossmann did not underestimate the resilience of capitalism. A few months after his magnum opus was published, there was the crash.
best, rakesh
ps for those wanting to follow up on Grossmann, see the works of William J Blake and Roman Rosdolsky as well.