> Message: 12
> Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:06:22 +0200
> From: Patrick Bond <pbond at mail.ngo.za>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Subprime crisis - overaccumulation?
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org, marty at lclark.edu
> Message-ID: <478D204E.6060109 at mail.ngo.za>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> No, Harvey's book Limits to Capital *extends* Marx's countervailing
> tendencies argument (sorry about 'the whole point' as that was a bad
> phrase to use). He extends it spatially (especially invoking real estate
> and globalisation), temporally (especially invoking finance) and more
> recently into capitalist-noncapitalist spheres. How could you have
> missed that, lads?
As I remember, in Limits Harvey focused on devaluation of fixed capital as a resolution through crisis of overcapacity. (Similarly, financial busts as a devalorisation of overaccumulated financial capital.) The implication was that crisis was generally something quick and restorative, which is in keeping with Marx's definition of crisis.
Ben Fine and various co-authors have repeatedly made the point in debating Brenner that devalorisation of fixed capital happens all the time and makes 'persistent overcapacity' unlikely. In Capital and Class [some issue in 1999] they point out that mergers and acquisitions are often intended to rationalise industries by shutting down underperforming overcapacity. In New Political Economy [March 2005] he and other collaborators critique the hypothesis with an empirical study of the world steel industry, which is well worth reading.
Cheers, Mike Beggs