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View Full Version : crisis of over production made simply?



redhotpoker
14th June 2011, 19:50
I got this challenge during a debate on a You tube video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N8gJSMoOJc

@fleecethepeasants (http://www.youtube.com/comment_search?username=fleecethepeasants)
"Right, so would you care to explain - in your own words - WHAT the 'crisis of over capital accumulation' is and WHY it is negatively affecting the economy. Or am I right in my assumption that you will not be able to do this as you are just spouting some keywords you heard in a Marxian lecture. "Crises of Capitalism" by David Harvey, perhaps?
So, why aren't you moving to North Korea yet?"


I wanted to see if yall think my response to this challenge was accurate.


"I will answer your last question first. A. North Korea is not socialist, the working class has no power over the means of production or public life that power is instead delegated to a class of would be capitalists who live as parasites on the state system of production. B. Even if the DPRK was a shining example of socialism why would I move there? Socialism is about the liberation of all people not just Koreans.
Now too the second part; the crisis of over production.

capitalism has given birth to the greatest productive forces mankind has ever seen (so far). capitalist production has left the feudal landed estates and gild system and the slave plantation system in the dust. These new systems of production however come new contradictions, capitalism produces to much for the capitalist system of distribution to distribute. Essentially capitalism needs to constantly expand production, and decrease production time in order to undersell their

competition. This process also calls for the lowering of wages in order to squeeze the most profitability out of each worker (who has no control over production). This is where the crisis comes in workers and the middle class cannot buy all of the commodities that are produced at a level that is profitable for capitalists. Capitalists must then reduce the amount produced in order to sell off their excess inventory, leading to mass layoffs and in turn the reduction of the

ability of workers to buy commodities. The only options left open to capitalists is to open up new markets for the surplus commodities where they can be sold profitably, or a massive destruction of the means of production.

ZeroNowhere
14th June 2011, 19:57
That's not what's called a crisis of overaccumulation, such a crisis rather being based on the falling rate of profit, put forward in the third volume of Capital, and being quite different. What you're describing is the underconsumption theory of crisis, as held by Rosa Luxemburg and such.

Otherwise, I'm not going to go much further than wishing you luck in trying to convince them with underconsumption theory, because even I'm not convinced by it at all and I'm a communist.