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Book Reviews porations can almost suppress price competition. Thus there is a widening gap between production costs and prices. In the authors’ words, there is now a continual tendency for the economic surplus to rise. BOOk I Such increase in profits makes possible even greater expansion. This leads to a central problem of monop­ oly capitalism today - “reduced scope for expansion versus increased ability to expand." “The resolution of this contradiction”, says Sweezy, “becomes the key to the understanding of firm be­ REVIEWSTHE DYNAMICS OF US CAPITALISM: Paul M. Sweezy haviour in the period of monopoly capitalism.” and Harry Magdoff. Monthly Review Press, N.Y. 1972. Pp. 237. $8.95 (cloth), $3.70 (paper). A consequence of the emergence of this ‘new’ MODERN CAPITALISM and other essays: Paul M. contradiction is that crucial aspects of classical pol­ Sweezy. Monthly Review Press, N.Y. 1972. Pp 184 itical economy are no longer valid. Namely, the theory $1.95. of “the average rate of profit has no operational sig­ nificance ....... neither does a rise or fall in the aver­ The two books under review are the latest by Sweezy and Magdoff and add to the rapidly expanding list of age rate of profit ...... have the significance attaching to it in conditions of competition.” publications by Monthly Review Press. The two books are made up of essays taken mainly from the journal The main problem with monopoly capitalism today, that Sweezy and Magdoff edit, Monthly Review, and according to Sweezy and Magdoff, is that it has a the respective publication dates of the essays range tendency to stagnation due to “over accumulation in from 1965 up to 1971. The time lapse between the relation to the growth of consumption”. As a conse­ essays does not detract from their effectiveness or quence the sales effort and state expenditure now their relevance. In fact, part of their interest lies in occupies the centre of economic analysis. This thus the fact that one is able to trace through them an ev­ becomes the starting point of their analysis - and by olution of Sweezy’s and Magdoff’s critique of US cap­ doing this they have shifted from a study of produc­ italism. However, they suffer from the problem of any tion relations (the starting point of Marx’s analysis) collection of essays anchored to specific topic, namely to a study of market relations. repetition. Sweezy acknowledges this but felt that the overlapping was unavoidable. US capitalism, the authors claim, exhibits all these features of monopoly capitalism and in fact the US Paul Sweezy is most well known for his book Theory provides their main empirical data (Sweezy and Mag­ of Capitalist Development (1942), and for the book he doff rarely concern themselves with other developed co-authored with Paul Baran Monopoly Capital (1966). Harry Magdoff’s The Age of Imperialism (1969) is his capitalisms). The Dynamics of US Capitalism is more most widely known work. The elaborated theoretical concerned with the concrete application of then- basis of this latest collection of essays can be found in general theory of monopoly to the United States. these books. The most important essay in this regard is Harry Yet what is so good about this recent collection for Magdoff’s ‘Problems of United States Capitalism’ the reader who has not got the time to go back and even though it is one of the oldest (it was written study these earlier works is that they contain concise in 1965). Magdoff draws attention to the fact that even after 20 so-called boom years for American cap­ outline statements of the broader thesis held to by italism it is still afflicted with idle machinery and Sweezy and Magdoff. idle labour (unemployment in the US generally runs at around about six per cent). This would be worse This is especially the case with the collection says Magdoff if it was not for massive military Modern Capitalism and Other Essays which contains spending on the part of the US government. This is the two valuable essays ‘Modern Capitalism’ and ‘On a perennial theme of both Sweezy and Magdoff. As the Theory of Monopoly Capitalism’. Their central Sweezy argues: object of analysis is monopoly capitalism and hence they place a great deal of emphasis on the difference “Some of us have been saying for a long time now between monopolistic and competitive capitalism. that if it weren’t for the enormous military outlays They claim that the basic assumptions of Marxist of today, the US economy would be as profoundly economics are only operative in competitive capit­ depressed as it was during the Great Depression of alism and that while Marx’s analysis was correct for the 1930s. Can this assertion be supported by evid­ the 19th century competitive capitalism, it has to ence? I think it can. Let us add to the unemployed be radically revised if it is to cope with present-day just calculated (7.9 million), the following: capitalism. The authors claim their Marxist lineage by asserting that they avail themselves of Marx’s in millions powerful analytic method. Briefly, their argument runs this way. Under com­ Members of the Armed Forces 2.9 petitive capitalism, capitalists stay in business through Civilian employees of the being able to increase productivity and thereby reduce defence department 1.2 costs and therefore prices. Such competition ultimate­ Employees in defence industries 3.0 ly leads to the weeding out of the weaker capitalists Those employed because of and results in a concentration of capital in fewer and indirect effects of military fewer hands. At a certain stage in this process, a dec­ spending (multiplier - 1) 7.1 isive change in the way the market operates occurs. Under monopoly capitalism the need for capital ex­ Thus, using conservative estimates where estimates pansion continues, technological change continues are necessary the total number of unemployed...... apace, but at the same time, the now dominant cor­ works out to 25.6 per cent...... For comparison, the 37 highest unemployed rate ever recorded was 24.9 per himself had all but admitted the end of such hegemony. cent at the depth of the Depression in 1933”. (‘On This is hardly a desirable state of affairs for revolution­ the Theory of Monopoly Capitalism’). Magdoff points ary socialists to find themselves in. Revolutionaries to the way military spending acts as a backstop at must have a clear idea of the possible fall of future strategic points in the business cycle. He says that events in order to be able to intervene effectively in business profits are highly volatile due to the inverse them. Indeed, such under-estimation of future events proportional relationship between sales and costs. by both Sweezy and Magdoff demands that the theor­ “Mild recessions can thus turn into severe depressions etical premises of their works be carefully scrutinised. if losses in key capital goods industries force a com­ plete shutdown of many plants. However, the orders This has begun to happen and the Baran/Sweezy/ for military goods in the otherwise vulnerable indus­ Magdoff thesis is being criticised more and more fre­ tries help to pay for overhead costs, build resistance quently by various Marxists. The most devastating to depression losses, and inhibit the cumulative eff­ criticism of these various writers’ ‘third worldism’ has ect of recessions”. come from Ernest Mandel who has at the same time presented the most coherent framework for under­ Magdoff also locates a problem of the US economy standing the present inter-imperialist rivalry. An Eng­ in the failure of the civilian economy to fully utilise lish communist, Bill Warren, has cast severe doubt on the economic resources of the country which is re­ the notion that military spending in the US is as flected in the declining role of capital investment. absolutely central to the US economy as Sweezy and But then this is a result of the main functional problem Magdoff claim. Warren argues that the various prob­ of monopoly capitalism. “The declining relative imp­ lems faced by US capitalism could be partly surmounted ortance of capital investment, even in the face of sub­ by more sophisticated state intervention in that econ­ stantial military needs, should come as no surprise if omy. That it has only just begun to do this is a result, he takes into account the tendency in a capitalist he claims, of the composition of the US ruling class. economy for productive capacity to outpace effect­ Another theorist has also challenged what appeared ive consumer demands.” to be the stronghold of the authors under discussion. Ernesto Laclau claims that their theory of under­ In 1965, Magdoff located the ‘present’ trouble of development is too vague and general. It is not based the US economy not in competition with other cap­ on a clear specification of the modes of production italist nations but in its increasingly unfavourable of the under-developed countries and therefore leads balance of payments. After a recession in 1957 the to a false understanding of the relationship between economy needed strong stimulation, more than mil­ the under-developed countries and the imperial met- itary spending was capable of and this meant an ever- ropoles and therefore of the relations between the increasing debt structure. social forces in the under-developed countries them­ selves. Within the American left itself Baran, Sweezy and Magdoff have come under increasing attack. This latter focus, the focus on the monetary problems Bob Fitch and Mary Oppenheimer have convincingly of American capitalism, is the strongest section of The argued that finance capital retains its dominant pos­ Dynamics of US Capitalism, for it is here that we find ition within the ruling class and thereby locates con­ the most clear recognition by Sweezy and Magdoff of flicts within the US ruling class where the authors the problems of WORLD imperialism.
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