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Ecology Although Marx and Engels Regard Capitalist Mode of Production As a Necessary Condition for the Transition to Socialism

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Ecology Although Marx and Engels Regard Capitalist Mode of Production As a Necessary Condition for the Transition to Socialism E ecology Although Marx and Engels regard the earth. They are only its occupams, its (he enormous expansionist tendency of the beneficiaries, and like a good paterfamilias capitalist mode of production as a necessary have to leave it in improved condition to condition for the transition to socialism. they following generations.' I ~ nonetheless stress the destrucnve violence of this mode of production. As Marxist theory Reading developed, however, the first point of view Bahro, R.lldolf 1980: Elemente einer nelU!1l Politik, was increasingly emphasiud in a o ne-sided zum Verhiiltni5 von Okologie und So~UJIt$m"$. manner, until finally Stalin saw the superiority Fet~her, Iring 1~g2: 'FortKhrimglaube und of socialism over capitalism only in the ability Okologie im Denken von "\arx und Engels'. [n of the former ro provide the optimal Vom Wohlfahrustaar ZlIr neUIm L!bemqualitiit. conditions for the growth of the productive leiss, William 1~72 : The Domrn3rron o(Natllre. forces. In The Condition of the Working Class Engels already mentions the devastating effects of the expansion of industry on the economic crises In discussing crisis theories, natural environment, while Marx observes we must distinguish genera! crises, which that 'the capitalist transformation of the involve a widespread collapse in the economic production process is al the same time the and political relations of rtproduction, from martyrdom of the produ~rs' and 'every the partial crises and business cycles which are advance in capitalist agriculture is an advance a regular feature of capitalist history. In in (he art, not only of robbing the worker, but capitalist production the individual desire for also of robbing the soil'; such progress profit periodically collides with the objective therefore leads in the long run to the 'ruin of necessity of a social division of labour. Partial the permanent sources of this fertility [of tht crises and business cycles are merely the soil], (Capital r, ch. 13 ). 'Capitalist produc­ system's intrinsic method of reintegrating the tion, therefore, only develops the techniques two. When the system is healthy, it recovers and organization of the social process of pro· rapidly from its built-in convulsions. But duction by simultaneously undennining the the unhealthier it is, the longer become its sources of all wealth: land and the worker' convalescencc:s. the more anaemic its re­ (i bid.). In Capital III (ch. 46) Marx expressly coveries, and the- greate-r the- likelihood of refers to the obligation of human beings to its entering a long phase of depression. In the­ preserve the ecological preconditions of United Statc:s, for example, though the-re have human life for future generations: 'From the been thirty-five economic cycles and crises in standpoint of a higher socio·economic the 150 yca~ fcom 1834 to tht present, only formation [i.e. socialism I individual private twO - the Great Depressions of 1873-93 and ownership of the earth will appear just as 1929-41 qualify as ge-neral criSts. The much in bad tastt as the ownership of one question which now confronts the capitalist human being by another. Even a whole world is whether or not the Great Depression society, a nation, or all contemporary socitties of the 1980s will some day be added to this taken together, are not the absolute owners of list. (Mandel 1972; Bums 1969). -. ECONOMIC CRISES 139 In analysing the capitalist system. Marx historically detennined facton; and neassity const:lndy rders to Its 'laws of motion', For theories, based on the notion of law as the instan~. he speaks of the tendl!1lCY of the rate expression of an intrinsic dominant tendency of profit to (:Ill as a general law, while at the that subordinates counttrvailing ones, in same time presenting various counteracting which the ptriodic occurrence of general rende/laes 'which cross and annul the effects crises is inevitable (though, of COUfS(', the of the general law'. So the '1uesrion naturally sptcific form and timing is detennined, Wlthm arises: How does a 'law' emerge from limits, by historical and imtiturional factors). tendency and counter-tendency? There are Wt shall see how modem Mancis[ throries of twO basic ways to answ.:! this. One possibility crisis exemplify thtse two approaches. is to concepru31iu the various tendencies as operating on an equal footing. Capitalism Possibility Theories gives ri~ to a ~t of conflictmg tendencies, and Here we can identify two main groups: the balance of forces existing at a particular underconsumptionlstagnation [heories, and historical 'conjuncture' then detennines the wage squeeze theories. system's final direction. In this perspective, structural reform and state intervention A. Underconsumption/Stagnation Theories appear to have grca[ potential, because under In capitalist society the money value of its net the right circumstances they can rip tht product is tqual to tht sum of the wages paid balance and hence actually regulate the to workers plu! rhe profits accruing to outcomt. This gtntral ptrsp«tive, as will be capitalists. Since workers get p;lid less than the seen, underlies most modern Marxist crisis fOtal value of tht net product, their throries and has imponant political consumption is never sufficient to buy it back: implicaTions. workers' consumption generates a 'dtmand Marx, on cht other hand, had a rather gap', and the greater the share of profits to difftrtnt approach to the subject. For him, it wages in value added, the greattr thIS demand ..... as crucial to distinguish between the gap. Of course capitalists do consume a dominant ttndtncy and various subord inate porrion of their profits., and this helps to fill countervailing ones, because the latter opcratt some of the gap. Nonetheless., the bulk of their within the limits provided by .the fonner. incomt is saved, not consumed, ;lnd in Bccau5t the dominant ttndencies arise OUt of Keynesian fashion these savings are viewed as tht ver)' n::.turt of the system itself and endow a 'leakage' from demand whose ultimate basis it with a very powerful momentum, the remains the restrictccl income and con­ subordinate tendencies tffecth·tly optrate sumption of the masses. If this portion of within moving limits and are channelled, so to the demand gap corresponding to capitalists' sptak, in a ddinite dirtction. (Within thest savings wefe nor filled, pan of the product limits the subordinate tendencies may well would not be sold, or at least not at normal function as merely conflicting tendencies on prices, so that the whole system would 3n equ31 footing.) From this vantage point, contract until profits were so low that those structural rdorms, state intervenrion, capitalists would be forced to consume all and even cbss struggles which leave the basic their income - in which case, there would be nature of the system unchangccl have limited no (net) investment and hence no growth. The potential, precisely because they end by being internal econom ic logic of a capitalist subordlnatccl to the intrinsic dynamic of the economy is thus said to prcclispose it towards system. Stagn3rion. We en now identify [WO main typeS of crisis Of course the 4~eP_ can be filled nor theories, corresponding to the two differtm only by consumprion bur also by investmtnt methodologic.al approaches to cpitalist demand (the demand for plant and history: possibility theories, based on the tquipment). The grearer this demand, the notion of law as tht resultant of conflicting higher the lcvd of production and c:m­ tendencies, in which general crises occur if and ployment in tht systtm al any moment of when there is a cenain conjunction of rime, the faster it grows_ In the end, therefore, ------ 140 ECONOMIC CRISES the final motion of the system depends on the stagnation is C'xplained by thC' presence of interplay beMun the tendency towards unusually strong countC' rvailing factors: POs[­ stagnation created by the savings plans of the war US hegemony, new productS and tech. capitalists, and the countervailing tendency nologies, and military expenditures. towards expansion created by their Within such a framework, it is ob\·ious th;!.[ investment plans. Capitalisrs save because as any economic intervC'ntion which strengrhC'ns individual capitalists, they must try to grow in and directs the expansionary factors can in order to survive. But they can invest only principle overcome the thre;!.! of St;!.gnation. when the objective possibili ties exist, and Keynesian economics, for ins(;}ncc, claims these in turn depend on two factors. chat thC' state, either through its own spending Specifically, the fOlfndotion for large scale or through its stimulation of private spending, commerce and trade is provided when the can achieve socially desired levels of outpUt hegemony of a particular capitalist narion and employment and thus determine, in the (Britain in the nineteenth centUI)' and the USA final instance, the laws of mofiOll of the in the twentieth) allows it to orchestrate and capitalist economy (see KEYNES AND MARX). enforce international political and economic The IInderconslimpfionists do not dellY this stability. And the fuel for large scale possibility. They merely claim that it is investment is provided when a critical mass of not currently practical, because modC'rn new products, new markers, and new capitalism is characterizC'd by monopoly, not technologies all happen to coincide. When competition: monopoly increases capitalism'S foundation and fuel coexist expansionary tendency towards stagnation; when th iS factors will be ascendant. On the other hand stagnation sets in the state COUntC'rs it by as the fuel runs out and the inter-capitalist stimulating aggregate demand; but then rivalries increasingly undermine [he founda­ monopolists respond by raising prices rather tion, at some poim the contractionary than expanding output and employment (as factors reassert themselves and stagnation would competitivC' firms ). The rC'Suiting becomes the order of the day - until, of stalemate between state power and monopoly course, a new hegemonic order (perhaps power thereby producC's stagnation.with· forged through a world war) and a new burst inflation: 'stagflation'.
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