Ian,
my point is that even if rate of exploitation of employed proletarians is
rising, surplus value production still confronts a limit in absolute size
of population available for valorization. This of course seems absurd in
the face of such a large global reserve army of labor (and huge pockets of
unemployment in this country, often hidden in the prison system). But as
you noted, what counts is a population that is actually available for
exploitation.
**Agreed**
More importantly, the population base has to be considered not simply in
terms of itself but in terms of the enormous productive capacity in the
capital goods sector. Since fixed capital is slow in its turnover while
capital goods are yet built up for an expanding market, there is
always the
looming threat of overproduction here relative to the available
valorization base. Greenspan is merely expressing this dread of
underpopulation.
**This is one of the reasons Capital seeks salvation through computers for more thorough inventory management, just in time, demand forecasting, inter-firm data mining/sharing in LANS etc. to cut waste driven by temporally desynchronized production; overcome "coordination failure" and gain economies of speed and throughput [see Lazonick]**
Of course if capitalization of surplus value is hindered due to lack of
surplus value vis a vis accumulation requirements or insufficiency of the
valorization base, this insufficiency or underproduction of surplus value
turns into an excess of surplus value that may now be speculated in the
stock market, arbitrage, or real estate.
**Doug H. quotes Keynes to great effect on this "the daily revaluations of the Stock Exchange, though they are primarily made to facilitate transfers of old investments between one individual and another, inevitably assert a decisive influence on the rate of curent investment. For there is no sense in building up a new enterprise at a cost greater than that at which a similar existing asset can be purchased; whilst there is an inducement to spend on a new project what may seem an extravagant sum, if it can be floated off on the Stock Exchange at an immediate profit" [Henwood, 1997, 1998].**
So my explanation for the excess of surplus value is the opposite of John
Bellamy Foster's--it follows not from the excess but from the
insufficiency
of surplus value. But I am a student of Grossmann, he of Sweezy. In fact
Foster wrote a whole book critiquing my "school", though there may be a
compromise position in the work of Sydney Coontz...
**I take insufficiency to mean lack of new opportunities to reinvest the surplus value at its current level/rate of return or greater -- is that correct?**
I argue that the excess of surplus value drives capital to raise even
further rate of exploitation and expand valorization base through
expansion
in space. Of course foreign direct investment carried out by multinational
corporations which then import otherwise excess capital goods is a key
strategy to expand the population base available for exploitation. It's a
secondary question whether the surplus value thereby produced will be
realized within China or in foreign markets--though I think there is much
greater interest in the domestic market than generally recognized.
**I follow Crotty et al. that MNC's FDI strategies tend to shoot themselves in the foot when they attempt to expand geographically [Baker, Epstein and Pollin "Globalization and Progressive Economic Policy"].**
The need to expand into China to secure population base to avoid
overproduction of capital goods runs into the capitalist class'
ideological
and security concerns which are not served by integration of China into
world market. As always, I think labor has to forge a strategy clearly
independent of these two factions within the capitalist class.
Yours, Rakesh
**Expansion into China may simply be to send intermediate and consumer goods back to US at lower per unit costs. If per/unit prices of goods fall fast enough [due to rate of exploitation increase] then Capital wards off demand side inflation here in the US from at least a few sectors and can use low inflation claim as a tool to hold down desire for wage increases because household purchasing power is not threatened by price increases on spatulas, toys, etc. unless Capital is even greedier at the checkout counter despite falling costs. Re [in]security concerns: technology transfer will be very closely scrutinized as will the engineering depts. of all of China's universities. Fortune 500 factions will be real schizoid trying to make bookoo $$ from China while doing neo-containment rhetoric in Peoria. Agree on labor, call Thea Lee....**
Ian
The protestors are a little more sophisticated in their analysis of the problems than you suggested in some of your posts, although many more linkages as to the "core" of the problem need to be made; we can't hurry "them" to the point of discouragement. You don't believe the stuff written about "them" in the papers do you?