"Capital goods are 'pure commodities,' in the sense that they remain within the circulation of capital, strictly defined. 'Surplus value...is the difference between two homogeneous quantities: on the one hand, the value produced at the social level by the collective labourer; on the other hand, the quantity of value that leaves capitalist circulation...'Capital goods have no other use thatn to augment the proudctivity of labor, and they are desired only in so far as they reduced socially necesary labor, or cheapen consumer good and/or capital good products. The social demand for capital goods is thus governed strictly by the capitalist demand for profits, excepting new capital goods designed to produce new and different wage goods. Within the capital goods sector, ceteris paribus, living labor is continually expelled, the value composition of capital increased, and socially necessary labor time reduced. "By contrast, social demand for consumer goods is fomred within the context of working class needs, class struggles, domestic relations, politics and culture generally. Consumer goods are not used to expel living labor from production but rather to meet working class needs in the commodity form, that is, as means and objects of reproduction utilized outside of three circuits of capital. An increase in the social demand for capital goods means there is a given capitalist demand to reduce socially necessary labor time, hence raise surplus value a process intensified by economic crisis. An increase in social demand for consumer goods means that there is a given working class demand to *expand* socially necessary labor, or to increase the consumption basket and/or its value composition. "The social demand for wage goods thus pushes up socially necessary labor (everything else being the same) while the social demand for capital goods pulls in the opposite direction. The composition of total value between the capital and wage goods sectors therefore reflects the class struggle. An increase in the share of total produced in the consumer good sector in relation to the capital good sector means that the working class has strengthened itself in relation to capital. To complicate matters, the social demand for capital goods may also derive indirectly from teh social demand for consumer goods. The less the demand for consumer goods, the less may be the demand for capital goods to reduce socially necessary labor in the consumer goods sector. Social demand for capital goods thus derives not only from struggles within production, but also struggles to expand the size and/or value content of the consumption basket. In sum, the demand for capital goods is not determined by the demand for consumer goods (as bourgeois economics claims) but rather the demand for profit (or more strictly speaking, 'technological rent') in both the capital and consumer good sector." p. 156-8
Just to speculate in terms of this framework: given the spurt of demand for capital goods in order to increase surplus value in the face of a global slowdown, it seems to me that this is perhaps why the US high sector has prospered while Japan's has languished. A couple of weeks ago, there was an interesting article in the WSJ about how much of Japan's high tech was concentrated in unprofitable consumer good electronics and gadgets. The weaker demand here may be an indication of setbacks in the class struggle.
yours, rakesh