anwar shaikh, lecture 6 – ricardo and marx (10/5)

for Marx, in response to Ricardo's argument about rent, will make a distinction between the hierarchy (of lands of different productivity) and the temporal movement. Marx doesn't think that the temporal movement will have to be towards lands of lesser productivity (this is where technology will become very important). this obviously has implications for Ricardo's argument re: falling rate of profit.

to Marx!

Marx did not live to complete his life's opus.

In the introduction tos A Contribution to the Critique of Classical Political Economy, two central propositions of historical materialism enumerated:

1. Neither legal or political forms can be comprehended with reference to the mind; but only with reference to the “material conditions of life.”

2. The anatomy of this material conditions of life has to be sought in political economy. The real structure of the economy on which the legal/political superstructure is erected (i.e., the forms of exploitation through which the surplus is extracted correspond to a certain arrangements of legal/political life).

Analytical Stages

1844-1845 – approach issues as 'philosophers' (Marx rejects LTV, writes treatise on alienation, etc.)

1846-1848 – beginning to develop their own economic concepts (surplus labour isn't there yet, etc.)

1848 – Revolutions in Europe (postdated the Second Great Depression of capitalism, 1844-1848; a period of tremendous revolt), which fail. Around this time, they're members of the League of Communists—there's a debate over the relationship between politics and economics, whether you need propitious conditions, or not. This incurs a charge of lack of radicalism, and they're expelled (is this true?)

1850-1857 – from this period comes the Grundrisse, which was unpublished

1857 – Gets a contract for two books, and plans on publishing “On Money” and then “On Capital”. First one does badly so contract is cancelled. These can be thought of the 'first drafts' of DK Vo. 1

1867 – Marx publishes Vol. I, DK (talking about his plan of capital – there's a loose movement from the abstract to the concrete, starting with 'value' and moving, eventually, to crisis)

1885/1893 – for Luxemburg/Kautsky, Shaikh is arguing, don't take Vol 2 and Vol 3 terribly seriously. They were content to use a few elementary propositions, but they cast aside the insights of the later volumes.

Example of 'immiseration' as showing you the importance of setting Marx's work in context.

Question, here, about how you go from theory to concrete. You have to decide whether you tweak theoretical apparatus when confronted with problems making sense of the concrete, or whether to dispose of the theoretical apparatus entirely. You need to have this dialogue.

The Marxist movement didn't have this dialogue. They substituted the idea of 'monopoly capital' for the unfinished tasks of Marxist economics—Kautsky and Bernstein had begun to introduce the notion of capitalism having entered a new stage ('the suspension of the laws of competition').

This had devastating consequences for Marxism, Shaikh is arguing. Competition is actually central. The laws of motion are derived from competition (the monopoly school will have to speak about 'power').

Four critical general themes, in Marx's work and Marxist arguments

1. The Laws of Motion:

1. Long waves are caused by conjunctural factors—due to a balance of forces at a given period of time. Shaikh calls these “coordinate tendencies,” and the movement will come from the balance of these forces. “Possibility theory.” Class struggle determines the rate of exploitation (Glynn and Sutcliffe, in the 1980s), or the State as asserting itself on these dynamics (Keynesian arguments). In this way of thinking about capitalism, Shaikh is arguing, are not “laws of motion” as much as they are historical tendencies. A wide range of paths are possible.

2. Overriding factors—a hierarchy of forces/tendencies, in which some are dominant. “Necessity Theory.” In contrast to the first way of thinking about capitalism, here there is a very strong sense in which laws will assert themselves over contingency.

2. Competition—Marx calls it the locomotive force of 'bourgeois economy', though competition will give rise to concentration (increasing capital-intensiveness) and centralization (more and more things coming under the aegis of a single capital)

1. Marxist traditon (competition and centralization leads to monopoly, which leads in turn to the end of competition)

2. Shaikh's view of Marx (concentration/centralization in turn intensify competition—they don't negate competition, in other words, but intensify it. 'bigger and better' weapons, in effect—the war becomes more intense.)

3. Crises—a confusion between 'cycles' and 'crises' (or Great Depressions). Marx and Engels themselves shared this confusion. Here, there's also the question of the loss of the falling rate of profit from Marxist accounts of crisis (the Marxist tradition rejects it)

4. Role of the State—Marx didn't himself write about the State in tremendous detail, but things like 'budget deficits', etc. can be derived from propositions in Marx. If you don't do that, though, then the State becomes incorporated into one of these 'power' conceptualizations—you are a Keynesian, in effect. Marx has an argument about capitalism's perpetual failure to generate “full employment” on a world scale--this is directly contrary to the Keynesian notion that full employment is a stable state. This is a foundational contrast.