STRANGE TIMES

I’m not saying that Pearson has even read Mao. I wouldn’t know. I suspect he hasn’t because he has invented his own terminology, which is different from classical marxist terminology. This is not unusual. Dialectics has been discovered and rediscovered many times in parallel fashion. eg. quite a few scientists employ some sort of dialectical method.

Mao’s explanation of dialectics is the clearest that I’m aware of. Partly because of that I see it as a useful exercise to outline the connection between Pearson’s philosophy and Mao’s. The fact that Pearson has invented his own independent terminology – and in all likelihood has come to his philosophy by a different pathway – makes the comparison all the  more interesting. “Great minds think alike” – or something like that.

Most of the quotations below come from the following two essays:

White guilt, victimhood and the quest for a radical centre by Noel Pearson (2007)
On Contradiction by Mao Zedong (1937)

Dialectics as the way in which things develop

Mao:

The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing

Qualitatively different contradictions can only be resolved by qualitatively different methods

This dialectical world outlook teaches us primarily how to observe and analyse the movement of opposites in different things and, on the basis of such analysis, to indicate the methods for resolving contradictions

Pearson:

My contentions are these. First, it is important to correctly identify the fundamental dialectical tensions that define human policy and political struggle. Second, the resolution of each of these tensions lies in their dialectical synthesis, and not through the absolute triumph of one side of a struggle or a weak compromise. Third, other subsidiary struggles fall out of these classical conflicts. Fourth, complexity arises because questions of human policy are not confined to the neat and isolated categories of a ten‐point list. Rather, they involve a number of tensions simultaneously

Importance of all sided, concrete analysis and the identification of the principal contradiction

Mao:

Lenin … said that the most essential thing in Marxism, the living soul of Marxism, is the concrete analysis of concrete conditions … Without concrete analysis there can be no knowledge of the particularity of any contradiction

Lenin said:

“… in order really to know an object we must embrace, study, all its sides, all connections and “mediations”. We shall never achieve this completely, but the demand for all-sidedness is a safeguard against mistakes and rigidity”

There are many contradictions in the process of development of a complex thing, and one of them is necessarily the principal contradiction whose existence and development determine or influence the existence and development of the other contradictions … in studying any complex process in which there are two or more contradictions, we must devote every effort to finding its principal contradiction

Pearson:
Aboriginal people are faced with a wide variety of problems – substance abuse,  dependency on passive welfare, racism, dispossession and trauma.

Out of this variety of issues Pearson identifies the main problems of the aboriginal people as substance abuse and dependency on passive welfare

He doesn’t reject or dismiss the importance other problems (racism, dispossession and trauma) but he does distinguish clearly between the current main problems and the longer term historical legacy, putting these latter problems in a secondary position for now.

“When abusive behaviour is deeply entrenched in our communities it is not the material destitution , the social ills and historical legacy that fuel the abuse epidemics. It is the epidemics that perpetuate themselves.”
On the human right to misery, mass incarceration and early death (October 2001).

This analysis gives hope and real guidance because it means aboriginal and white people can get on with tackling real and urgent issues rather than becoming passive (paralysed by the complexity) and possibly guilty about a huge morass of unresolved issues. Pearson rejects “symptom theory thinking”, that the main reason for substance abuse is the despair, hopelessness, social dislocation of aboriginal communities and other “underlying causes”. He identifies such thinking as a real problem, causing paralysis.

Identity of opposites (Mao); pyramid and radical centre (Pearson)

Mao’s identity of opposites:

Lenin said:

“Dialectics is the teaching which shows how opposites can be and how they happen to be (how they become) identical–under what conditions they are identical, transforming themselves into one another,–why the human mind should take these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, transforming themselves into one another”

It is only the reactionary ruling classes of the past and present and the metaphysicians in their service who regard opposites not as living, conditional, mobile and transforming themselves into one another, but as dead and rigid, and they propagate this fallacy everywhere to delude the masses of the people, thus seeking to perpetuate their rule

Pearson’s pyramid and radical centre metaphors:

We are prisoners of our metaphors: by thinking of realism/pragmatism and idealism as opposite ends of a two‐dimensional plane, we see leaders inclining to one side or the other. The naïve and indignant yaw towards ideals and get nowhere, but their souls remain pure. The cold‐eyed and impatient pride themselves in their lack of romance and emotional foolishness: pragmatism and a remorseless Kissinger‐esque grasp of power make winning and survival the main prize every time. Those who harbour ideals but who need to work within the parameters of real power (as opposed to simply cloaking lazy capitulation under the easy mantle of righteous impotence) end up splitting the difference somewhere between ideals and reality. This is called compromise. And it is all too often of a low denominator.

I prefer a pyramid metaphor of leadership, with one side being realism and the other idealism, and the quality of leadership dependent on how closely the two sides are brought together. The apex of leadership is the point where the two sides meet. The highest ideals in the affairs of humans on Earth are realised when leadership strives to secure them through close attention to reality. Lofty idealism without pragmatism is worthless. What is pragmatism without ideals? At best it is management, but not leadership …

Idealism and realism in leadership do not constitute a zero‐sum game. This is not about securing a false compromise. It need not be a simple trade‐off where one splits the difference. The best leadership occurs at the point of highest tension between ideals and reality. This is the radical centre. If the idealism is weaker than the realism, then optimum leadership cannot be achieved. And vice versa. The radical centre is achieved when both are strong

Development is uneven, equilibrium is always temporary

Mao:

In any contradiction the development of the contradictory aspects is uneven. Sometimes they seem to be in equilibrium, which is however only temporary and relative, while unevenness is basic. Of the two contradictory aspects, one must be principal and the other secondary. The principal aspect is the one playing the leading role in the contradiction. The nature of a thing is determined mainly by the principal aspect of a contradiction, the aspect which has gained the dominant position…. Nothing in this world develops absolutely evenly; we must oppose the theory of even development or the theory of equilibrium

Pearson:

“… it is difficult for the same actor to play several roles in the dialectical process. It is possible for the same person to have an overall intellectual analysis, but practical politics and the production of theory are not the same thing. For example, in a socially and economically successful country, there is competition between interests and forces which represent capitalist principles on the one hand, organisations which represent communal and socialist ideas on the other, and inspired political leaders who perform the synthesis between these contradictions. It is possible for an individual to have an intellectual appreciation of this, but that individual can hardly play all three roles …

I will finish by setting out some reflections on my experience of driving an agenda of rights and responsibilities in Indigenous policy. By the end of the last millennium, it was not possible to continue in this area without facing up to the gaping responsibility deficit. It was a deficit of which I had long been aware, but the prevailing currents were averse to this particular R word. Two other Rs – rights and reconciliation – were ruling. I have never doubted the correctness of our claim to rights; I have made a contribution to the struggle for the rights of my people in Cape York Peninsula, and have continued this contribution. Our rights to our traditional lands, to our languages and our cultures, our identities and traditions are a constant part of our work for a better future for our people.

When I decided that we could no longer go on without saying that our people held responsibilities as well as rights, is was not a repudiation of rights. It was just that all of the talk, all the advocacy, all the analysis, all the leadership, and all the policy and politics was about rights. There was no talk about responsibility. So when we talked about child malnutrition, we spoke of the rights of the children and the responsibility of governments, but we didn’t talk about the responsibilities of parents. We didn’t ask “how come children are malnourished?” It can’t be because the parents have no money, because in Australia the government provides money to all those who don’t have an income. It can’t be because there is no food available – there are shops in these communities where the malnourished children live, as well as bush food.

There was a widespread refusal to even think about responsibility. If there were no practical consequences to our failure to talk about responsibility – and strong strategic reasons not to make the responsibility concession to the political right – then this situation could have continued. But there are practical consequences galore! It is simply not possible to see how any social or economic problem can be solved, or opportunity seized, if we don’t first accept responsibility. No progress can be made without filling the gaping deficit.

My view is that the main reason why people have refused (and still refuse) to talk about responsibility is not for strong strategic reasons, but because they actually believe that better health and better education and better housing and better life expectancy and better survival of traditional languages are rights that can be enjoyed if other people – specifically governments, but also the wider society – take the necessary actions to make them materialise. It amounts to this absurdity: my rights depend on you fulfilling your responsibilities to me. Who in world history has ever been saved by anyone in the way we hope whitefellas will save our people?”

Any thoughts about these and / or other principles of dialectical philosophy and how they can or should be applied to the current local or world situation? eg. What is the principal contradiction in the world today?

Something to think about for world environment day

Alston Chase:

To understand why the ecosystem idea is so broadly popular and so seldom questioned, we must go deeper than politics, to consider the underlying culture, or deep structure of society … Sometimes cultures become dysfunctional …

Ancient Myth #1: There is a balance of nature

Modern Corollary #1a: Ecosystems are “self regulating” and, so long as left undisturbed, maintain themselves in balance.

Modern Corollary #1b: Since ecosystems regulate themselves, leaving them alone is the best way to preserve them.

Ancient Myth #2: Nature can be “healthy” or “unhealthy”

An old notion, derived from the supposition that nature is like the human body.

Modern Corollary #2a: The goal of preservation policy should be to maintain ecosystem health, which is defined as ecosystem balance.

Ancient Myth #3: In the beginning, all was perfect.

This is the millennia old belief in a Garden of Eden or Golden Age. It has many corollaries, including:

Modern Corollary #3a: Existing species can disappear, but new ones cannot be made; hence, “biodiversity” can only decline.

Modern Corollary #3b: “Native species” are good for the environment, “exotic” species are bad for the environment

Modern Corollary #3c: Native peoples never harmed or altered the environment, but modern peoples, especially technological societies, inevitably damage it.

Modern Corollary #3d: The goal of preservation should be to “reestablish original conditions”

Ancient Myth #4: Nature is sacred

This pantheistic supposition, for centuries embraced by many cultures around the globe, was introduced to the European settlers of North America via Puritan theology, whose views of nature were, in turn, infused by German romantics and religious writers

Modern Corollary #4a: Sound environmentalism must rest on a “biocentric” point of view, not on an anthropocentric one.

– Alston Chase. In a Dark Wood: Introduction to the 2001 Transaction Edition

Noel Pearson:

I need to revisit the first point I made in my 2009 essay Radical Hope. Quoting Jonathan Lear, I said what made the hope of a people who lost their old world radical was that “it is directed towards a future goodness that transcends the current ability to understand what it is. Radical hope anticipates a good for which those who have the hope as yet lack the appropriate concepts with which to understand it”.

Closing the gap in education, and Aboriginal Australians’ internalisation of the Enlightenment, are necessary for my people to take their rightful place in the national and global communities. But those things don’t transcend our present understanding …

We do need economically and socially sustainable lives; but it is our cultural link with the past – a link that would break without language – that makes our lives spiritually sustainable as members of a conquered people. What we need more than anything else is to see that our tongues are not dying languages spoken only in a few homes but languages with a future: growing, officially recognised languages of Australia
– Speaking one’s mother tongue is vital

I’d be interested in the thoughts of others about this passionate article by Noel Pearson.

I read his Radical Hope essay when it was published in 2009 and was persuaded that behaviourist based delivery (the ever controversial Pearson has opted for Zig Engelmann’s “Direct Instruction”) was essential to jump start his Cape York education reform. However, note that the Cape York educational system was designed to be well and truly bicultural as well as behaviourist.

It is Pearson’s grasp of dialectics that enables him to plan and implement a scheme which draws from opposite sides of educational philosophy. It is also clear from the article that his grasp of dialectics has enabled Pearson to significantly influence the thinking of Tony Abbott, in a similar way to his previous influence on John Howard.

Both of the authors below opposed the US led war in Iraq. Both of them support imperialist intervention in Libya.

An Open Letter to the Left on Libya by Juan Cole

The United Nations Security Council authorization for UN member states to intervene to forestall this massacre thus pitched the question. If the Left opposed intervention, it de facto acquiesced in Qaddafi’s destruction of a movement embodying the aspirations of most of Libya’s workers and poor, along with large numbers of white collar middle class people. Qaddafi would have reestablished himself, with the liberation movement squashed like a bug and the country put back under secret police rule. The implications of a resurgent, angry and wounded Mad Dog, his coffers filled with oil billions, for the democracy movements on either side of Libya, in Egypt and Tunisia, could well have been pernicious.

Libya: a legitimate and necessary debate from an anti-imperialist perspective by Gilbert Achcar

The left should certainly not proclaim such absolute “principles” as “We are against Western powers’ military intervention whatever the circumstances.” This is not a political position, but a religious taboo.

Many of the comments to these articles express dismay at Cole and Achcar for questioning the one true way of anti imperialist consistency. We are witnessing a repeat of the process whereby anti-imperialist purists condemn and cast out those who refuse to remain true believers. See this supportive comment on the Juan Cole thread:

AMEN, JUAN! AMEN! Thank you so much for this. I’ve been an active demonstrator and vocal, obnoxiously-sanctimonious railer against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with railing against Obama’s weak health-care “reform,” his subservience to Wall St., his perpetuation and expansion of W.’s oppressive national security state and military budget… I’ve made lots of “comrades” in that time, and I’m split from nearly all of them in supporting this intervention in Libya …

The deterioration of the situation at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant adds to the enormous problems already facing the Japanese people in the aftermath of a massive disaster in winter. This article attempts to assess the future of nuclear in the light of recent developments in Japan.

Preparedness:
Japan is a modern economy in an earthquake zone, part of the ring of fire. In many ways their disaster preparations are admirable (Let’s keep the Japanese earthquake in perspective). So, of course they are relatively far better off than was Haiti.

Nevertheless, they were not as well prepared as they could have been. Ishibashi Katsuhiko was a member of the expert panel that developed new seismic design guidelines, but resigned in August 2006 because his warnings were ignored. (Why Worry? Japan’s Nuclear Plants at Grave Risk From Quake Damage)

Technical:
Barry Brook has run an informative series of articles at his pro-nuclear site Brave New Climate assessing the situation. Initially he predicted that there was “no credible risk of a serious accident” but has now admitted that he was wrong:

In sum, this accident is now significantly more severe than Three Mile Island in 1979. It resulted from a unique combination of failures to plant systems caused by the tsunami, and the broad destruction of infrastructure for water and electricity supply which would normally be reestablished within a day or two following a reactor accident
– Fukushima Nuclear Accident – 17 March update

The older nuclear reactors have not displayed disaster proof safety capabilities. Extending the lifetimes of existing plants is not the way to go. In response to the Japanese experience, Germany has shut down seven of the country’s seventeen nuclear power plants for an indefinite period, the seven plants built before 1980. (Nuclear Moratorium in Germany Could Cause Spike in CO2 Emissions)

Cost:
Pro nuclear advocates (including myself) have previously argued that regulatory costs are artificially high. This may still be true in some respects but there is no getting around the fact that these costs will now increase.

Nuclear is already more expensive than coal and will remain so in the absence of new technological innovation.

Political:
Fear of nuclear was already a big factor in selling it politically. Although much of the media coverage has been over hyped and not well informed technically there is no doubt that public opinion against nuclear will increase given the real failure of nuclear safety in Japan.

Nuclear will not go away, however. We need more energy. Global warming is real. Renewables can’t do the job. in the wake of the Japanese disaster, India and China have already announced their intention to proceed with nuclear. (Nuclear Power in not going away). An Editorial in The Guardian (Nuclear power: After the flood) argued for the need to build new, safer nuclear plants, and not extend the life of old plants.

The solution:
The best solution is a massive increase in R&D funding into alternative energy sources to fossil fuels, including nuclear, with a view to reducing their cost to the equivalent or less than coal.

Some reasons for supporting an acceleration of the already established decarbonisation of the economy are that:

• anthropogenic global warming is real, although we are not particularly clear about the urgency of the issue
• the oceans absorb vast amounts of CO2 and a particular reason for concern is the biogeochemical effects of this

The environmental issues are real but subsidiary to the need for economic development, particularly in the developing world but also in the developed world.

Politically, the correct position is:

1. full steam ahead with economic development which means more coal use now because coal is the cheapest energy producing fuel
2. full steam ahead with R&D, with the goal of decarbonisation of the energy economy, ie. finding a cheap alternative to coal

John McCarthy has said that “He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense”. I think he meant science and maths as well as arithmetic.

In this article I present the Kaya identity which provides us with the basic maths required to understand carbon emissions.
Continue reading ‘decarbonisation of the economy’

There are three pieces to the climate change puzzle and so far the mainstream political parties have only grasped two of them. The three pieces are based on misconceptions that many people hold about acting on the issue. These misconceptions are outlined in Chapter 2 of Roger Pielke jr’s book, The Climate Fix:

1) We lack political will
2) We must trade off the economy for the environment
3) We have all the technology we need

Pielke’s book argues at length that each of these assumptions is false. I won’t attempt to duplicate that here but rather illustrate the argument through the stance of the Labour / Green alliance and The Coalition in Australia.

Gillard has announced her intention to tax carbon. This is based on her correct belief that the people want some action on climate change. Given public opinion on this issue her political estimate is that it is more dangerous to do nothing than to do something.

Abbott has announced his opposition to a carbon tax and that, if elected, he will rescind any carbon tax introduced by Labour. This is based on his correct belief that the people will not tolerate any serious infringement of living costs based on a carbon tax. He knows that people will not accept a trade off of the economy for the environment.

Continue reading ‘the missing piece of the climate change puzzle’

The Long Death of Environmentalism

There are good environmentalists and bad environmentalists. Or, it is more accurate to say that more often than not there are good and bad ideas about environmental questions that exist within the same person. In this article I depict this complex reality in simple terms: good Green and bad Green.

The Green Party has a leader, Bob Brown, who makes things up (that the Queensland floods were the direct responsibility of the coal industry), promotes policies that are incompatible with immediate low cost economic growth (coal is bad) as well as longer term economic growth (nuclear is bad too).

Bob Brown represents the dying Greens, the bad Greens. Sooner or later his ideas will be replaced by good Green ideas. My estimate is that the bad Green ideas have peaked and are now in decline.

Let it be said that concern for the environment is a good thing. The environmental movement has alerted us to the real dangers of anthropogenic global warming, real threats to endangered species, etc. These issues are not the most important issues in the world but they are significant. There is a real need for some sort of environmental political movement.

The bad Green movement may appear to have real strength in Australia, with the Gillard minority government (enmeshed in an alliance with The Green Party) recently announcing her carbon tax plan. Or, as she prefers, her carbon price plan. The appearance of strength is illusory. The politics of The Greens has peaked and Gillard’s embrace of a carbon tax will quite likely contribute to her demise at the next election, whenever that is held.

Internationally, the bad Green movement is on the retreat.

Continue reading ‘remaking the environmental movement’

Rawa Community School, WA, 7 Apr 2009

One Laptop Per Child Australia has done a good job of deploying laptops to roughly 400,000 children in remote aboriginal communities:

View One Laptop Per Child Australia in a larger map

Legend:
Ear-marked or has expressed interest for deployment
Scheduled for deployment
Partial deployment
Full deployment – one laptop per child

This is best viewed at Google Maps but even in this version if you click on map icons you can obtain more detail of the deployments.

The Weekend Australian (Feb 19-20) ran an article, Destroyed in Alice by Nicolas Rothwell exposing the severe alcohol and drug abuse problems amongst aboriginal people in Alice Springs.

In response, some have deplored Rothwell’s “shock tactics”

In some ways this is already an old discussion. Rothwell’s so called shock tactics ought to be welcomed. The taboo of not discussing the most shameful features of our society is now long broken. How does not exposing shame assist the shamed? No one has ever explained this. The taboo was broken by Noel Pearson many years ago, for example, in his Charlie Perkins memorial Oration, On the human right to misery, mass incarceration and early death (October 2001). This set the precedent and the taboo has been broken on an increasingly frequent basis since then.

Continue reading ‘shock tactics in alice’

A zero carbon Australia: plan or pipe-dream?

This issue will be debated at the next The Monthly Argument

Matthew Wright (Beyond Zero Emissions) will present the Zero Carbon Stationary Energy Plan

Following this Matthew and Arthur Dent (formerly know as Albert Langer) will debate it.

When: Thursday March 10, 2011 at 6:30pm for 7:00pm start
Where: The Dan O’Connell Hotel, 225 Canning Street, Carlton

Author: Arthur
Comment: (on Egyptian thread)

Former UK Foreign Secretary David Owen has come out with a clear demand for UN Security Council to immediately enforce a no fly zone over Libyan to prevent air force attacks on opposition.

All previous commentary has been hand-wringing. Al Jazeera interviewer uncomprehending asked inane question about whether regime would take any notice and was given clear explanation that the point was not to influence them but to shoot them down.

Immediately available forces mentioned were NATO UK, Cyprus, and Egypt.

Qatar also called for (unspecified) Security Council action.

Meanwhile US still dithering and editorialists blathering about “dilemma” in Bahrain.

And from D.C. Exile:

Former British Foreign Minister David Owen today called for a UN No-Fly Zone to be adopted and imposed on Libya. Owen’s call came in the wake of the defection of two senior Libyan air force pilots and reports of the state’s use of airstrikes against protesters in Tripoli. Along with the defection of the two pilots, several Libyan diplomats resigned in protest over the state’s use of force against protesters. At the same time, protesters in Benghazi have declared their city liberated from the regime.

Twitter feed #libya

Marxist Theory of Overaccumulation and Crisis (1990) by Simon Clarke (21 pages)

The purpose here in writing a brief review is to generate enough interest in Simon Clarke’s essay, so that people will read it. This in turn may lead to reading Clarke’s more comprehensive book, Marx’s Theory of Crisis (1994)

At the start, Clarke somewhat mysteriously refers to orthodox Marxist theories as underconsumptionist. Don’t be put off by this. In section 3 (pp. 6-7) he stresses that overproduction is the Marxist tradition and presents an incisive explanation of the deficiencies of underconsumptionist theories.

Clarke’s goal is to explain that capitalist crisis is necessary, that it can’t be avoided. In this respect efforts to reform capitalism are a waste of time.

Various dodgy theories which have been advanced in the name of Marx are briefly described and critiqued.

The theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is not a sufficient explanation for the cause of crisis. The falling rate of profit may intensify but cannot explain the necessity of crisis. Bad theories lead to bad policies, the idea that crises can be resolved by wage restraint and the transformation of work practices to restore the rate of profit.

So, what is Clarke’s understanding of the Marxist theory of crisis? This:

“The source of crisis lies neither in the ‘anarchy of the market’, nor in the immediate process of production, but in the relation between the two , in the ‘circulation process which is in itself also a process of reproduction’ “ (1)

The tendency of capitalism is to develop the productive forces without limit. However, the ability of the working (and unemployed) population to consume without limit is restricted. This creates the possibility of crisis at a point in between production and consumption.

But underconsumption and overproduction are not opposite sides of the same coin, as claimed by Sweezy.

Production and consumption cannot be neatly separated. They constitute a dialectic, both united and separate at the same time (2). For example, when the capitalist buys means of production and puts them to work that is both consumption and production combined – productive consumption.

Another misconception is to look at consumption as the ultimate goal of capitalist production. The real goal of capitalist production is to produce surplus value. For that to happen products made have to be sold. But that is not a smooth process. The strength of Marx’s analysis is his ability to articulate all the difficulties and contradictions along the way in between the categories of money, means of production, labour power, the production process and the exchange of the new commodities produced.

From experience of recessions and depressions it is obvious that not everything produced is automatically sold. Say’s law which states that production creates its own consumption is wrong. The market does not magically solve this issue.

Moreover, capitalists produce both means of production (Department 1) and consumer goods (Department 2). Underconsumptionist theories focus just on Department 2 consumer goods, the essential requirements to keep the working class (and capitalist class) ticking over. So, the unconsumptionist analysis is one sided in this respect as well.

However, unevenness and disproportionality in production and circulation can’t be avoided due to the tendency of capitalist production to expand without limit. A theory of inevitable disproportionality has far more credibility than a theory of inevitable generalised underconsumption.

It is necessary to study Marx’s circulation and reproduction schemes (Volume 2) to achieve more clarity about this.

Do crises arise from the ignorance of capitalists? Could a more centralised co-ordination of capitalist production avoid crises?

Before answering these questions we need to ask another: Why is there overproduction?

Capitalists may lust for more profit but why doesn’t the more rational, smarter capitalist anticipate the results of overproduction and gracefully withdraw to a more in demand productive sector, thus preventing disproportionality between sectors arising?

Various theories have been developed to explain the alleged general irrationality of capitalists. Unwarranted optimism. Erroneous expectations. The lure of creative innovation. Unwarranted credit expansion by irresponsible governments. Monopoly distortion of the market. Immobility of fixed capital. These theories are critiqued by Clarke.

Clarke demystifies the market by outlining the many contradictions that lie beneath its surface.

Competition for raw materials, means of production, labour power, credit etc. confront the capitalist as a barrier to further expansion and realisation of surplus value– a barrier which each capitalist must strive to overcome. The successful capitalist will develop the productive forces without regard to the limits of the market. Ultimately the only way to realise more surplus value is to produce more commodities as economically as possible and throw them onto the market. Capitalism is a dynamic, expansive system by its nature.

Competition inevitably leads to an uneven development of the forces of production as capitalists struggle for a competitive advantage. It is inevitable that this will lead to imbalances between production and consumption. Clarke traces out this immanent tendency of capitalism in more detail.

Eventually capitalism hits a wall. A crisis of accumulation means that capital exists which cannot be realised, cannot be used. This capital can be in the form of money which has no where to go, means of production which are not utilised (over capacity) or unsold commodities. The crisis can only be resolved by the destruction of this unrealised capital and then starting over again.

What is the role of credit in the capitalist system? As stated above competition for raw materials, means of production, labour power, credit etc. confront the capitalist as a barrier to further expansion and realisation of surplus value. To break through this barrier the capitalist needs money and may not have enough. Credit fills this gap for the capitalist.

At the other end of the chain the customer needs money to buy commodities. Once again credit can make up for a short fall here.

Can credit be used to overcome the tendency of capitalism to crisis?

Credit can delay and smooth the process but does not resolve the underlying contradictions. During a boom optimism prevails and credit is cheap and easily available. This stimulates further overaccumulation, uneven development and disproportionalities. If credit continues to expand in this context then this will lead to inflation.

Sooner or later, the boom turns to bust, a destructive downward spiral, where “the over accumulation of capital suddenly appears in the form of a mass of worthless debt and an enormous overproduction of commodities”, etc

This cycle of overaccumulation and crisis has been going on for over two hundred years.

Mainstream economics explains it as a monetary phenomena whose ultimate causes are psychological or political. But despite various theories the crises still continue. To explain them we need to return to Marx who looked below the surface to how capitalism really functions.

Recurring economic crisis is not just economic crisis. If it cannot be avoided then it is social crisis. It has to be dealt with.

The purpose of this summary is to encourage further critical study of authors such as Simon Clarke who do appear to have understood the Marxist theory of crisis amongst the swirl and confusion of many other interpretations.
——
(1) Clarke provides reference to three sources in Marx’s original writings to support the claim that his interpretation is the real deal. Here are the links:
Capital volume 3, pp. 351-2, Penguin, 1981
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch15.htm beginning with “Given the necessary means of production” in the online translation

Grundrisse, pp. 410-11, Penguin, 1973.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch08.htm#p402 beginning with “But from the fact”

Theories of Surplus Value, Volume 2, p. 513-517, Progress Publishers, 1968, 1971,
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch17.htm beginning with “On the Forms of Crisis”

(2) http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch01.htm
In section 2: THE GENERAL RELATION OF PRODUCTION TO DISTRIBUTION, EXCHANGE, CONSUMPTION, Marx presents a mind blowing account of the interrelations between these categories, which anticipates his more detailed treatment in Volume 2.

The next Monthly Argument is about a subject of universal interest: food

Date: February 10: “GM crops are good for us”
Time: 6:30pm for 7:00 pm start.
Venue: The Function Room, Dan O’Connell Hotel, 225 Canning Street (corner of Princes Street) Carlton

The “yes” case will be made by David Tribe (of GMO pundit)  and David McMullen, author of Bright Future

The “no” case will be made by Madeleine Love and Jessica Harrison (both from MADGE)

Go to the Monthly Argument site for more detail.