Lyev
10th March 2010, 18:19
It's a pretty good read - although of the economic formulas go way over my head - and I was wondering, not really what she meant, but how this can be applied to modern circumstances? Have we seen in the current economic crisis and expansion of foreign markets like she says?
From the crises in history he demonstrates that ‘they occur only after a considerable increase of productivity’.(13) (http://marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch16.htm#foot-13) Rodbertus opposes what he terms the vulgar view which conceives of crises as mere disturbances in the monetary and credit system, and he criticizes the whole of Peel’s currency legislation as an error of judgment, arguing the point in detail in his essay On Commercial Crises and the Mortgage Problem. There he makes the following comment among others: ‘We would therefore deceive ourselves if we were to regard commercial crises merely as crises of the monetary, banking, or credit system. This is only their outer semblance when they first emerge.’(14) (http://marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch16.htm#foot-14) Rodbertus also shows a remarkably acute grasp of the part played by foreign trade in the problem of crises. Just like Sismondi, he states the necessity of expansion for capitalist production, but he simultaneously emphasises the fact that the periodical crises are bound to grow in volume.
‘Foreign trade’, he says, ‘is related to slumps only as charity is related to poverty. They ultimately only enhance one another.’(15) (http://marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch16.htm#foot-15)
And further:
‘The only possible means of warding off further outbreaks of crises is the application of the two-edged knife of expanding foreign markets. The violent urge towards such expansion is largely no more but a morbid irritation caused by a sickly organ. Since one factor on the home market, productivity, is ever increasing, and the other factor, purchasing power, remains constant for the overwhelming majority of the population, commerce must endeavour to conjure up a similarly unlimited amount of purchasing power on the foreign market.’(16) (http://marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch16.htm#foot-16)
In this way, the irritation may be soothed to some extent so that at least there will not be a new outbreak of the calamity right away. Every foreign market opened defers the social problem in a like manner. Colonisation of primitive countries would have similar effects: Europe rears a market for herself in places where none had been before. Yet such a medicine would essentially do no more than appease the ill. As soon as the new markets are supplied, the problem will revert to its former state – a conflict between the two factors: limited purchasing power versus unlimited productivity. The new attack would be warded off the small market only to re-appear, in even wider dimensions and with even more violent incidents, on a larger one. And since the earth is finite and the acquisition of new markets must some time cone to an end, the time will come when the question can no longer be simply adjourned. Sooner or later, a definite solution will have to be found.’(17) (http://marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch16.htm#foot-17)
Thanks folks.
From the crises in history he demonstrates that ‘they occur only after a considerable increase of productivity’.(13) (http://marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch16.htm#foot-13) Rodbertus opposes what he terms the vulgar view which conceives of crises as mere disturbances in the monetary and credit system, and he criticizes the whole of Peel’s currency legislation as an error of judgment, arguing the point in detail in his essay On Commercial Crises and the Mortgage Problem. There he makes the following comment among others: ‘We would therefore deceive ourselves if we were to regard commercial crises merely as crises of the monetary, banking, or credit system. This is only their outer semblance when they first emerge.’(14) (http://marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch16.htm#foot-14) Rodbertus also shows a remarkably acute grasp of the part played by foreign trade in the problem of crises. Just like Sismondi, he states the necessity of expansion for capitalist production, but he simultaneously emphasises the fact that the periodical crises are bound to grow in volume.
‘Foreign trade’, he says, ‘is related to slumps only as charity is related to poverty. They ultimately only enhance one another.’(15) (http://marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch16.htm#foot-15)
And further:
‘The only possible means of warding off further outbreaks of crises is the application of the two-edged knife of expanding foreign markets. The violent urge towards such expansion is largely no more but a morbid irritation caused by a sickly organ. Since one factor on the home market, productivity, is ever increasing, and the other factor, purchasing power, remains constant for the overwhelming majority of the population, commerce must endeavour to conjure up a similarly unlimited amount of purchasing power on the foreign market.’(16) (http://marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch16.htm#foot-16)
In this way, the irritation may be soothed to some extent so that at least there will not be a new outbreak of the calamity right away. Every foreign market opened defers the social problem in a like manner. Colonisation of primitive countries would have similar effects: Europe rears a market for herself in places where none had been before. Yet such a medicine would essentially do no more than appease the ill. As soon as the new markets are supplied, the problem will revert to its former state – a conflict between the two factors: limited purchasing power versus unlimited productivity. The new attack would be warded off the small market only to re-appear, in even wider dimensions and with even more violent incidents, on a larger one. And since the earth is finite and the acquisition of new markets must some time cone to an end, the time will come when the question can no longer be simply adjourned. Sooner or later, a definite solution will have to be found.’(17) (http://marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch16.htm#foot-17)
Thanks folks.