Dear Rakesh,
It is a shame that you choose to adopt a college debating-point style to the discussion rather than address the theoretical - or empirical - issues raised. It means that instead of trying to understand those facts or arguments that do not fit your own perspective, you try to shout them down with counter-examples. But theory is not a question of disproving or dismissing those illustrations that fall outside of the dogma, it is a matter of explaining those, too, from the standpoint of theory. Put simply, if I give you examples of progress, and you give me counter- examples of backwardness, you prove my point that capitalism combines both of these. The alternative of course is to reduce theory to a merely dogmatic approach that serves, not any wider public, but the true believer, who can engage in sophistic arguments to fend off uncomfortable facts. That provides solace for the true believer, but it does not in any way advance the cause of understanding.
As it is with the empirical material, so it is with the theoretical. Like a medieval scholar, you pile up the authorities you want to cite, as if more authorities meant winning the argument. But theory is not a mobilisation of authorities, it is a question of understanding. You cannot hope to drown out Marx's views with Grossmann's, but must address the point Marx makes in the Grundrisse (already heavily cited) or in Capital ('A larger part of their [the workers] own surplus product always increasing and continually transformed into additional capital, comes back to them in the shape of means of payment, to that they can extend the circle of their enjoyments', Cap 1, 579).
Marx is quite clear that the increase in profits by increased productivity cheapens the necessaries of life, making it possible for workers to enjoy more use-values, even while the value of labour-power is falling (Concept of Relative Surplus Value). As Lukacs says (Conversations with Lukacs, MIT) the increase in _relative_ surplus value is characteristic of the post war period. This can be seen for example in the availability of automobiles to far greater numbers of people. In Britain car ownership at 30 million (pop. 56 million) is no longer the preserve of the middle classes.
You cite Grossmann's 'nuanced theory of immiseration'. But Grossmann specifically excludes the effect of price changes (and therefore of a cheapening of consumption goods, Grossmann, History of Political Economy). Furthermore, Grossmann also excludes the effect of increased productivity, concentrating instead upon increased intensity of labour. The latter of course will increase the value of labour power, at the expense of its physical endurance (plainly not the present condition, as the increase in life expectancy shows). The former cheapens the workers consumption goods. Of course Grossmann was writing at a point, the interwar period, when not just the relative position of the worker, but the absolute was falling (see Jurgen Kaczynski's extensive statistics). It was not surprising, then, that he should place his emphasis upon what was characteristic of that time, increase in absolute surplus value, fall in the quantity of use-values the workers' wage would secure. But even Grossmann understands that capitalist crisis is not a permanent condition, but one that creates the conditions of its own supercession, as you seem to want to avoid.
More instructive than Grossmann is Roman Rosdolsky's Chapter, 'The so- called "theory of immiseration"' (Making of Marx's Capital, vol1, p300). Rosdolsky had had the time to see the destructive effects of the immiseration theory upon communist politics. He had seen the way that vulgar assertions of immiseration in the midst of an improvement in the material conditions of workers only succeeded in marginalising the left. And most importantly he understood that it was a complete lie to say that Marx's theory rested on the cornerstone of absolute immiseration.
In message <v02130501630bddefdf7e@[128.112.71.43]>, Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari at phoenix.Princeton.EDU> writes
>By ordinary people here you mean the already or to be professional salaried
>people who are stoked by the Tony Robbins pep talk stuff in which LM
>excels, right?
No, I mean ordinary people whose living standards have improved over the
last fifty years. You should try getting out of the college and talking
to some of them some time.
>
>However, Mattick predicted an upturn following the war on the basis of the
>possibilities opened up by the massive destruction of capital. He also
>deomonstrated that Keynesian techniques could be successful in stabilizing
>the economy before the limits of the mixed economy would be reached.
Yes, and the limits of the mixed economy were reached, back in 1976, but wait, what's this? Capitalism has not collapsed! Twenty three years after the limits of the mixed economy were reached, capitalism is thriving. And even after the depressions of 1979-84 and 1990-3 it is even enjoying an upturn.
>Actually following Wm J Blake, I think Grossmann's magnum opus should be
>trans as The Law of Accumulation and the the Catastrophe of the Capitalist
>System;
Yes, that would really make it relevant. Some catastrophe that exists theoretically, but somehow never finally overcomes. Of course, you could always make Marxism popular to the middle class intelligentsia by making it into a theory of catastrophe - they love all that gloom mongering. Then it would sell like Oswald Spengler's The decline of the West.
>>Instead Marx showed that destructive and creative aspects of capital
>>were always combined, with the one laying the basis for the other.
>
>This is just phrase mongering so favored by Bukharin and pilloried by
>Grossmann, our mutual hero.
Far from being phrase-mongering, it is necessary to resist the one- dimensional approach that you prefer. Marx too engaged in such phrase mongering when he chided Sisimondi for his one-sided emphasis upon crisis at the expense of the productive side of capital.
>
>Dealt already with the fall and stagnation in real wages. Even if this has
>been reversed in the last two years, the intervening 25 have to be
>explained, not denied.
But the difference is that I do explain the fall and stagnation in wages. I have always insisted on the destructive side of capital. It is you that is denying the real increases in standard of living.
>
>I meant Continental Europe for intractable unemployment.
I don't think that you could cite Germany or Denmark for 'intractable' unemployment. There has been a recent growth in unemployment, but in the context of many years of near-full employment. Also, it is wrong to concede to the official view of a permanent underclass. Most figures on unemployment show that individuals experience periods of unemployment, but that long-term unemployment beyond two-years is rare amongst those looking for work.
Furthermore, employment has been increasing, for many years in the West. The US increased its industrial workforce by 20 per cent between 1960 and 1994, Japan by 68 per cent. the only countries in which there has been an actual decline in the numbers of industrial workers have been Britain, France and Italy - all of which absorb their surplus labour in large service sectors. Between 1960 and 1990 the number of people in the world working in industry increased from 247 million to 381 million. In the developing countries the increase was largest, from 88 million to 192 million.
>John Galbraith goes so far as to say Japan has been suffering a silent
>depression since the crash of the Nikkei and real estate market.
Silent depression. That's a new one. How about invisible catastrophe, or hidden breakdown. I suppose if the collapse of capitalism is going to be something that we can neither hear nor see, then it is not going to make much difference.
>Of course
>stagnation, depression and eventually catastrophe are followed by several
>decades of growth. What is your point?
Well, that is my point. Stagnation is not a permanent condition, or as I said earlier, though you thought it rhetorical, capitalism combines productive and destructive elements. But if I can raise just one small quibble, catastrophe is a word that generally means that there is no recovery. If you mean by catastrophe, an event that can be overcome, then of course, what's to disagree with?
I said:
>>17 per cent increase in life expectancy
>>worldwide between 1950 and 1990. In the poorer countries of Asia the
>>increase is 20 per cent (UN World Population Prospects, 1990). Infant
>>mortality, too has improved, most pointedly in Africa. Of course it can
>>be said that starting from a lower level, small investments create
>>considerable improvements. But I don't think that you can just sweep
>>these facts under the carpet.
Rakesh replies:
>
>Again these numbers are near meaningless as a response to my request that
>we consider inequality.
But nobody is denying the fact of inequality. On the contrary, my argument is that inequality is increasing (in that the share of the total product falls more unequally than before). What is at issue is that I argue that the overall position is improving (in that the total product is greater, the reduced share can be absolutely more). So you can make as many requests as you like, but you cannot say that things are getting worse across the board when here is a clear example of them getting better.
Your argument that the increase in life expectancy can be accounted for entirely due to the increase in the life expectancy of the wealthiest sections is not supported by the statistics.
In India life expectancy increased from 50 in 1975 to 55 in 1985 to 63 in 1997, an average increase of 13 years. Life expectancy of the lowest income group stood at 59 in 1997, 4 years beneath the average, but nine years above the average for 1975 (covering the entire era of your long downturn).
In America and Britain, again in the period 1975 to 97, life expectancy increased from 73 and 72 respectively to 77. The life expectancy of the highest income group was equal to the average at 77. (World Bank Statistics.)
>
>And I would agree with the general point. My point however is that in
>counterposing the creative to the destructive in capitalism, one should not
>imagine that the creative is always useful.
This is semantics. Where the creative is not useful, then let's count it as destructive (of the labour expended on its production, at least), but that still leaves and actually creative and useful product.
>
>As for that hocus pocus of ecological biology, on what specific critiques
>of the work of which specific ecological biologists are you relying to
>justify the sweeping claim that it is all hocus pocus?
Well, my specifically bad experience was with Mae-Wan Ho of the Open University Bio-Physics department, who I had to talk to many times researching a television programme on genetic engineering. Her book is GE, Dream or Nightmare. But for a more general survey, see Murray Bookchin: Enchanting Humanity, or see Gross and Levitt's forthcoming book.
all the best -- Jim heartfield