>Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 18:17:13 -0400
>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>Subject: Re: Capitalism's rate of decay (Communication)
>
>Brad Mayer wrote:
>
>>Of course, the analogy was invoked mostly as a
>>corrective to Doug's open-ended skepticism. If capitalism >>is a historical system, ....
Well, I guess I'm answering in reverse order. Since there are responses on several different issues contained within, the paragraph must be broken up to address each issue in order of appearance:
>Hmm. Why do I get the feeling that because some guy
>said that capital would become its own final barrier,
I recall that guy posing it more as, after leveling every other (extraneous) barrier, capital confronts itself as its own final (or ultimate) barrier, but it was never in the sense of an _immovable_ barrier that, once hit, would stop capital dead. On the contrary, given capital's eminently "moveable" quality, it is a very moveable barrier. Later, as we all know, another dude named Joseph Schumpeter coined the phrase that a lot of journalists, editorialists and others - who have probably not looked too deeply into what the guy was really saying - love to toss about nowadays: "gales of creative destruction". And, at the very same time (1945) Schumpeter very much held to a view of the inevitable end of capitalism, his views on the causes of which dovetailed with those of Polyani (Later he shifted this view once the postwar expansion got going).
But, by itself, simply posing capital as its own ultimate barrier won't explain why capitalism could be characterized as in decline or decay.
>you're hot to find it in the real present? That may
>be true someday, somehow, but why are you so sure that >that's not decades, maybe centuries, away?
We should be hot for arguing the value in working it out in theory, as opposed to skeptical dismissal.
First of all, 'decay' is not to be confused with 'collapse'.
Actually, I had located the point in the real past - roughly, post-WWI. As a theoretical first pass, I'd say this point was reached when the scale and scope of the process of "real subsumption", that is, the absorption of the formerly exogenous conditions historically encountered as barriers (of which the proletariat is only one, if the key one),occurring in the course of the growth and extension of capitalism, precipitated both a tendency towards the disarticulation of the dynamics ("laws of motion") specific to capital itself, and the actual decomposition (and recomposition of the conditions of (and barriers to) capitalist production. Both occur simultaneously, and together are asymmetrical in their relation. While the exogenous factors (conditions, barriers) experience a linear cyclical decomposition / recomposition determined by their subsumption within the specific dynamics of capitalism, those dynamics themselves undergo an inevitable, unavoidable dilution, weakening, in a process unevenly distributed across the successive layers of capitalist development, with greater dilution in the older layers (which then shrink in relative weight, if not absolutely - indeed, they expand absolutely ) and less in the newer. This latter becomes the site of the countertendential rearticulation ("strengthening") of capitalist dynamics, which attempts to reorganize capitalism as a whole in its own image as a "new regime of accumulation" (today, the "New Economy") and the degree of success is measured by economic boom. This rearticulation at the "new center" can, in the process of reintegration of the whole system, actually weaken capitalist relations in and out the sphere of production; in particular, it can provoke a new cycle of decomposition in the conditions of production, which however, having already undergone an extensive historical period of their "real subsumption" to capital (going on a century now), now appear immediately as (and really are) economic crises for capital. The East Asian crisis, in particular the interminable Japan crisis, is a premier example of this process, which impacts what was the highest and final development of the _previous_ ("Fordist", or whatever) layer of capitalist development. At the same time, as the site of the (relatively) "purest" workings of capital, it is also the origin of the new crisis (the "New Crisis Economy") which, perhaps, may be unfolding before us today in the wake of the high-tech bubble bust. How these differing, multiple crises combine with one another across the layers of capitalist development, as well as across the zones of the "really subsumed" - commonly known as considerations of family, state, politics, gender, race, 'culture', ecology, science, technology etc. - which, however subsumed, still possess (must posses) dynamics specific to themselves, analyzable in abstraction from capital (but now caught up in capital) - that is the story the future will shortly write for us.
To illustrate (without further elaboration attempted here) other dimensions of capitalist decay, I would maintain that each successive layer of "new capitalist development" occurs within a narrower scope, even as it permits greater economies of scale ("concentration and centralization") and acts to accelerate the growth in the scope of capitalism as a whole, as well as the intensity and scope of "real subsumption".
I would also maintain that each successive layer of capitalist development is accompanied by the relative expansion of waste, deformation or retardation of technological development, and the reproliferation of obsolete technologies, all of which as reached a scale where it has begun to impact the global ecology. The common nomenclature for just a few: "fiber optics", "software engineering", "electricity crisis" (now a "glut"), and of course our favorite: the goddamn pesky internal combustion-powered private automobile that we all know and love.
BTW, none of this is terribly original: others, such as Aglietta, O'Conner and D & H themselves have argued along parallel lines, with different methods and perspectives.
And to refer back briefly to this subthreads' original reference, it is interesting to note that the chief limitation of "Late Capitalism" lay precisely in its refusal to consider to what degree these "exogenous" factors had been subsumed within the specific dynamics of capitalism, a self-imposed limitation clearly spelt out in the Introduction. In practice, though, Mandel could not avoid addressing this issue, as for example in his famous "Department III", etc.
Decades? Yes. Centuries? No.
>The current "neoliberalism" is the dispersion of what
>was once the spontaneous ideology of a new ruling
>class into the ideologies of proletarians;
Per above, 'dispersion' can also be seen as dilution, a weakening, decay. It also tends to be unevenly concentrated and dispersed across different strata, as for example, overconcentrated within the aristocratic craft ethos of S.V. ("Neoliberal" dispersion is certainly not unfamiliar to me, I work within it every day!) It can also be seen as a obstacle under certain conditions - fulfilling petit bourgeois notions of entitlement held by proletarians can be not only expensive, but distort the "normal" capitalist dynamic (actually, what is now normal _is_ the distortion); while, if these expectations are not met, political reactions damaging to capital can also set in.
>capital shapes our leisure, our fantasies, the way we
>see the world.
And our leisure, our fantasies, the way we see the world - and our theories - also shapes and conditions capital. These things it induced in us, can also appear as obstacles in another time. Marxism is a great example of this, including in its Hegelian 'prehistory'. At the same time, many trends derived from Marxism have been readily reabsorbed within the capitalist political system. But what is "subsumed" under capital still (must) maintain "laws of motion" specific to itself. It is only that these also have become an integral part of the capitalist dynamic as well.
>"Mechanical prefabrication" sounds like something
>brittle and lifeless made by dolts, when in fact the
>whole ideology reproduction system is very clever,
>and market disciplines impossible to evade.
Ideological fabrication (or broadcasting, or transmission, or "spamming", or whatever metaphor suits one's fancy) is a multilayered process, and therefore contains important discontinuities. It is hard to imagine S.V. libertarianism being sold to Indonesian sweatshop workers - even those making sneakers for Nike.
But 'impossible' to evade? They're evaded all the time.
And where Lenin, Keynes, Schumpeter, Polyani etc. "complete dolts" in their time, as well?
>You make the inmixing of state and capital sound
>novel and impossible; seems to me to be quite long-lasting,
>dynamic, and effective.
The periodization of capital presented here should make it clear that I don't regard this as novel at all. In fact, a degree of inmixing has always been a feature of capitalism (originally mediated by "civil society", or at least that was the original intention); post-WWI only represents the point of qualitative transformation of this into a permanent, dominant feature suffusing the whole system.
The presentation of a smooth, seamless surface, 'impossible to evade', would be just as one-sidedly in error as pure catastrophism. But it is natural to look for faults and flaws in the enemies position, no? It is just as natural to note the strong points.
>Some of its worst enemies can be found largely on the
>internet, which I'm sure capital and state would find >amusing, if they knew about it.
>
>Doug
Largely their "self-designated" enemies, probably, but not their "worst", who have only on occasion appeared on the stage as of late, as in France in the mid'90's.
But actually, _I_ find this amusing. I have also found that when my bosses became aware of some of my political positions (as during the NATO war), they were not amused at all.
And who says "they" don't know?
-Brad Mayer