('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).
Jim, you have taken this quote out of context. Here Marx is exploring accumulation on the assumption of a constant composition of capital. In this case there is no growing reserve army of labor to weigh down on the working class; on this assumption the working class is strong enough to counteract increases in the rate of exploitation made possible by the depression of the value of labor power due to declines in the unit commodity value. Marx's point is that even if workers could secure all the fruit from productivity gains, this would throttle capitalist production due to diminished surplus value, leading to a cyclical downturn in which capital could regain a more favorable position.
>
>More instructive than Grossmann is Roman Rosdolsky's Chapter, 'The so-
>called "theory of immiseration"' (Making of Marx's Capital, vol1, p300).
RR writes: "The real question is of course not how the word 'misery' should be interpreted in Marx's works, but whether 'the theory of immiseration' attributed to Marx can be reconciled with his theory of the determination of the value of labour power, his polemic against the 'iron law of wages', and his theses on the connection between growing intensity and productivity of labour and increases in real wages. In fact we can probably risk the hypothesis that even if Marx had proposed an 'immiseration theory' he would have had to reject it as being in contradiction with the real spirit and content of his theory of wages." p. 307
Now ask RR what Marx's theory of the determination of the value of labor power is. Following Rosa, Roman claims that its value is based on the laws of supply and demand--not the objective costs of the reproduction of labor (this is the basis of Henryk's criticism that Roman does not understand). Now of course the value of labor power includes a 'moral' component. But the question then becomes how this too is set within objective limits as accumulation proceeds. Here Roman gives not a clue as how to proceed. But then the question had not been answered until Paolo Giusanni took it up.
Roman also fails to explain to the reader how Henryck based his theory of increasing misery on just these bases--an objective determination of the value of labor power, a critique of the iron law of wages, consideration of intensity and productivity. Consequently, you seem not to have understood Grossmann's theory which you have conflated with an increasing absolute misery thesis that you have taken to be synomous with the iron law of wages. Yet Living Marxism claims to be guided by Henryck's pathbreaking work! You all sure confuse me.
>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.
Oh please Roman does nothing of the sort.
Please see section 6 "The kernel of truth in the theory of immiseration" where Roman resurrects Bukharin's idea that absolute immiseration does hold for the global proletariat as a whole (Wallerstein comes close to this position today); Roman also comes very close to arguing that absolute base physiological misery has been staved off in the imperialist countries due to unequal exchange. This is antithetical to Grossmann's reading of increasing misery as a depression of the wage below labor's power *value*, not a physical minimum.
Here the disciple is an epigone. For someone who advanced Grossmann, please see the works of Paul Mattick.
Yours, Rakesh