Zanthorus
18th September 2010, 18:02
Carried on from here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1867698&postcount=23):
The idea that there is a period where the means of production are developing and then there is a point where the class relations becomes a fetter on the means of production. I rather think that it is.
I think you are reffering to the following passage in the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:
At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution.
The problem is that this passage has to be interpreted within the framework which Marx later develops in his actual critique of political economy. The obvious candidate for relations of production becoming a fetter on the productive forces is the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and the subsequent overproduction crises. This tendency is laid out in Volume 3 of Capital in three chapters: 'The Law as Such', 'Counteracting Influences' and 'Exposition of the Internal Contradictions of the Law'. I think we all know the basic law, increasing productivity causes a fall in prices and hence a fall in the rate of profit. The second chapter on 'Counteracting Influences' deals with all the things that offset the tendency, the main one being the fact that the fall in prices causes a fall in the price of business costs and raises the profit rate again. The third chapter is the key one, where Marx combines the two opposing sides, tendency and countertendency, to develop his theory of crisis, how the material productive forces come into conflict with the relations of production in a concrete sense. Increasing productivity causes a fall in prices and a fall in business costs, but firms that invested in means of production back when business costs were higher suffer losses, value is destroyed. The destruction of value through economic crisis boosts the rate of profit and the business cycle begins again. It seems clear, then, that Marx's theory is not a theory of a once and for all phase of history where capitalism becomes a fetter on the productive forces, but a theory of inevitable cyclical crises.
Anyway, it may or may not be true that some social forms have a period of 'ascendence' and then 'decadence', this kind of analysis would not be out of line with Marx's materialist conception of history. "But one will never arrive there by the universal passport of a general historico-philosophical theory, the supreme virtue of which consists in being super-historical." (Letter from Marx to Editor of the Otecestvenniye Zapisky) Each seperate social form must be subject to analysis and it's inner tendencies analysed, without imposing supra-historical categories or general patterns on it. The theory of decadence is out of line with both Marx's general 'theory' of history and his specific analysis of the capitalist mode of production.
The idea that there is a period where the means of production are developing and then there is a point where the class relations becomes a fetter on the means of production. I rather think that it is.
I think you are reffering to the following passage in the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:
At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution.
The problem is that this passage has to be interpreted within the framework which Marx later develops in his actual critique of political economy. The obvious candidate for relations of production becoming a fetter on the productive forces is the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and the subsequent overproduction crises. This tendency is laid out in Volume 3 of Capital in three chapters: 'The Law as Such', 'Counteracting Influences' and 'Exposition of the Internal Contradictions of the Law'. I think we all know the basic law, increasing productivity causes a fall in prices and hence a fall in the rate of profit. The second chapter on 'Counteracting Influences' deals with all the things that offset the tendency, the main one being the fact that the fall in prices causes a fall in the price of business costs and raises the profit rate again. The third chapter is the key one, where Marx combines the two opposing sides, tendency and countertendency, to develop his theory of crisis, how the material productive forces come into conflict with the relations of production in a concrete sense. Increasing productivity causes a fall in prices and a fall in business costs, but firms that invested in means of production back when business costs were higher suffer losses, value is destroyed. The destruction of value through economic crisis boosts the rate of profit and the business cycle begins again. It seems clear, then, that Marx's theory is not a theory of a once and for all phase of history where capitalism becomes a fetter on the productive forces, but a theory of inevitable cyclical crises.
Anyway, it may or may not be true that some social forms have a period of 'ascendence' and then 'decadence', this kind of analysis would not be out of line with Marx's materialist conception of history. "But one will never arrive there by the universal passport of a general historico-philosophical theory, the supreme virtue of which consists in being super-historical." (Letter from Marx to Editor of the Otecestvenniye Zapisky) Each seperate social form must be subject to analysis and it's inner tendencies analysed, without imposing supra-historical categories or general patterns on it. The theory of decadence is out of line with both Marx's general 'theory' of history and his specific analysis of the capitalist mode of production.