Jacoby, Russell. 1975. "The Politics of the Crisis Theory: Toward the Critique of Automatic Marxism, II." Telos, No. 23 (Spring): pp. 1-52.
6: citing Mendel, A. P. 1961. Dilemmas of Progress in Tsarist Russia: legal Marxism and Legal Populism (Cambridge, Mass): p. 47 "forced industrialization at the price of heavy burdens on the peasantry destroyed the domestic consumption market indispensable" for industrialization.
9ff: populists argued in terms of underconsumptionism. Thus, they are the first to begin the analysis of Marx's theory of crisis. The legal marxists responded that capitalism creates its own market. Tugan takes it to extremes. Lenin's position: external markets not required. capitalism not independent of consumption as Tugan argued. Finally, anarchy of production => crises. "The basic cause of crises: Planlosigkeit, private appropriation under social production", Notes of Plekhanov's First Draft Programme, Collected Works, V, pp. 21-2.
He argued that crises were "inevitable" Lessons of the Crisis, Collected Works, V, p. 89.
17: in contrast to Russia, in Germany, "no attempt to evaluate the Marxist analysis of reproduction of social capital as an explanation of crises and, in general, of the laws of development of capitalism" in Tugan-Baronowsky. 1901. Studien zur Theorie und Geschichte der Handelskrisen in England (Jena): 199.
19: Kautsky, K. 1899. Bernstein und das socialdemokratische Programm. Eine Antikritik (Stuttgart): 42,43- "A definite 'breakdown theory' was not created by Marx and Engels. The word stems from Bernstein.." "In the official publications of German Social Democracy Bernstein could search in vain for an assertion which runs in some way similar to the alleged 'breakdown' theory. In the passage in the Erfurt program which discusses crises, there is no word on breakdown."
20: Kautsky tended to support a theory of underconsumption: see his "Krisentheorie." Die Neue Zeit. 20, 1901-2, p. 80. he says "It is no accident that the revisionists have especially fought the Marxist crisis theory" "Our theory of the crises is incompatible with the position of weakening of class conflict", ibid, pp. 141-3. But Kautsky and co. were lukewarm toward crisis theory
18: orthodox theorists made great to do about their differences with revisionists, yet practice was much the same. Reformists controlled the party and the trade unions. preferred non-theoretical pragmatism. cites Vollmar to Bernstein, "Since Erfurt, I speak less and act more...I can say that I am completely satisfied with the results."
21: Hilferding: capitalists have transcended anarchy. Now capitalism was organized by trusts, cartels..
22: different politics of crisis theory in Germany: "The economic theory of disproportions- not contradictions- carried with it an inverse political logic: the end of crises due to state planning. The economic theory of disproportions seemed to issue into political reformism."
22: Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution (Ceylon, 1966): 11 If one admits with Bernstein that capitalist development does not move in its own ruin, then socialism ceases to be objectively necessary."
26: Lenin saw Luxemburg's theory as rerun of legal populist theory: He wrote to Bremer Buerger-Zeitung "the main point came to the same result that I 14 years ago defended against Tugan-Baranowsky and the 'populists,' namely that the realization of surplus value even in a' 'pure' capitalist society is possible probably written in 1913: see Lenin, Briefe II (Berlin 1967): 152-3. gives several
19: "A definite 'breakdown theory' was not created by Marx and Engels. The word stems from Bernstein..." citing K. Kautsky. 1899. Bernstein und das sozialdemocratische Programm. Eine Antikritik. (Stutgart): p. 43. 15: Lenin, A Characteristic of Economic Romanticism." CW II, p. 167: "The first theory explains crises by the contradiction between production and consumption by the working class; the second explains them by the contradiction between the social character of production and the private character of appropriation. Consequently, the former sees the root of the phenomenon <outside> of production more briefly, the former explains crises by unerconsumption, the latter by the anarchy of production."
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com