On Nov 27, 2007, at 5:02 PM, bhandari at berkeley.edu wrote:
> True to dialectics, Grossman, the theorist of breakdown, actually
> did more
> to develop the theory of counter-tendencies than anyone since Marx
> or JS
> Mill (from whom Marx stole it). You can see what an advance Grossman's
> chapter is over the one Marx himself wrote. I hope you read more
> than the
> last sentence.
I did, and the greatness of the chapter eludes me. Recessions and competitive pressures drive capitalists towards innovation, market expansion, and greater levels of exploitation. I swear I've learned more by reading the business press over the years than that sort of thing could teach me. And the last line is very revealing - it's as if he couldn't help himself, after acknowledging the countertendencies at some length, he just had to return to the mode of terminal crisis.
He gets points for predicting the Great Depression (though some bourgeois commentators were alarmed in the late 1920s too). But as bad as the crisis was, it wasn't terminal. In fact, after 15 years of depression and war, the capitalist world embarked on a great boom that lasted for almost 30 years.
The reason to want to transcend capitalism is because it produces polarization, alienation, banality, and environmental ruin, not because the OCC's gonna drive us into the dirt.
Doug