More on the limits to capital

MORE ON THE LIMITS TO CAPITAL

Michael Lebowitz raises two major objections to my arguments in his review of The Limits to Capital (MR, June 1986). These objections are sufficiently important to warrant further comment.

Lebowitz first claims that I inject "extrinsic' phenomena concerning inter-capitalist competition into what should be a purely "intrinsic' argument concerning the laws of motion and crisis formation within capitalism. In support of his claim that I confuse two distinct levels of Marx's analysis he cites a quote from the Grundrisse: "Competition executes the inner laws of capital; makes them into compulsory laws towards the individual capital, but it does not invent them. It realizes them.'

Let me elaborate on the meaning of this quote. Marx shows in the Grundrisse that both the "individual' and "competition' in the sense we now understand them were the historical product of that great revolution in class relations that gave rise to capitalism. On this basis Marx attacks those political economists, such as Smith and Ricardo, who treat competitive individualism as an eternal and universal category that can be used to explain all capitalist phenomena. Competitive individualism is not "extrinsic' to the capitalist mode of production at all but internalized within it as an important corollary of the class relation between capital and labor.

There is, as Lebowitz correctly points out, a logical and historical priority involved here. It was the revolution in class relations (primitive accumulation) and the categories of class (and in particular the derivation of the concept of surplus value) that had to take priority over any elaboration of the theme of individual competition among workers or between capitalists.

But to treat competition, like supply and demand, as a given is not to see it as unimportant or extrinsic to the analysis. Marx frequently invokes it as necessary to his argument. He assumes a society with perfectly functioning markets in the second chapter of Capital (pp. 92-3 in the International Publisher's edition of 1967). He does so, I suspect, in order to show that perfectly functioning markets produce crises and devastation for the working class and not the maximization of social welfare that Adam Smith supposed (an idea with which we continue to be all too dismally familiar). Competition reappears in the chapter on the "Working Day' and is fundamental to the analysis of relative surplus value (p. 316) and the conversion of surplus value into capital (p. 502); while the whole argument on the equalization of the rate of profit and the deviation of prices from values depends crucially upon the operation of the laws of competition. Competition is not "extrinsic' to the capitalist mode of production, it is simply internalized as an "external coercive law' with respect to individual capitalists.

To concede the importance of competition in forcing capitalists into actions that produce crises does not, of course, make the contradiction between individual capitalists and the capitalist class the principal contradiction of capitalism. Lebowitz totally misrepresents me on that point. But I have to go back to my general method of argument in order to rebut him.

Lebowitz pours generous praise on my "non-linear' reading of Marx in the opening paragraphs of his review ("required reading for all who would study Capital'). Concepts are indeed introduced in a partial and one-sided manner and then enriched only in the course of development. This makes nonsense of any separation between "extrinsic' and "intrinsic' levels of analysis. My purpose in looking more closely at competition is to see how doing so may enrich basic concepts and arguments, particularly those dealing with the production of crises under capitalism.

Crises arise, I argue, because the paths of technological and organizational change under capitalism (revolutions in productive forces) are inconsistent with class relations (this I take to be Marx's view). This drives us back to the theory of relative surplus value and the theory of technological and organizational change that Marx there lays out. And there we find the idea of inter-capitalist competition indispensable. So let me try and enrich that idea. The decisions of individual capitalists on technological mix and organizational form have a crucial role to play. How they make those decisions matters. I argue (chapter four of Limits) that individual capitalists make those decisions in the face of inter-capitalist competition, the conditions of class relations and struggle, and out of certain systemic requirements (spill-over effects and the need to alleviate bottlenecks), ultimately perhaps culminating in a capitalist culture of "innovation for innovation's sake' (Marx makes very little of this last point but to the degree that capitalism has to be judged as one giant speculative enterprise, it is hardly surprising that new technological and organizational forms are always the focus of intense speculation). All this means that individual capitalists make decisions under "external coercive' conditions that ensure the destabilization of the very social system they seek to perpetuate. That does not make the contradiction between individual and class the "principal contradiction.' The whole argument of Limits is built around the capital-labor contradiction as the principal contradiction cut across by many other secondary contradictions (such as that between individual capitalists and workers and their classes, or between factions of capital--finance, industrial, landed, and merchant). My intent in Limits was to show how the study of these secondary contradictions could enrich our understanding of the laws of motion of capitalism and of the manner of operation of the struggle between capital and labor.

Let me now take the discussion a step further. It is important to think out what happens to the laws of motion of capitalism when any of these secondary contradictions change their form (and this we cannot to if we view them as "extrinsic'). I find myself fully in accord here with Baran and Sweezy, among others, who insist in Monopoly Capital that the laws of motion of capitalism look very different if competition is replaced by oligopoly; while Sweezy has recently argued that we are in a further phase of transition connected to the power of finance capital. My objection to the Baran and Sweezy formulation (see chapter 5 of Limits) is that it presupposes that capitalism is less competitive than it really is. The point of including spatial forms of monopoly in my argument was to show that revolutions in transport and communications have made the monopoly of place much less prevalent than it once was (vide the new processes of international competition in the division of labor). I also argue that organizational changes (the centralization of capital) and the rise of finance capital are less un-competitive than they appear. Therefore, I conclude, the laws of motion as Marx described them still broadly hold. Now I may or may not be right on this point. But it certainly seems vital to discuss it in both theoretical and historical terms. And that seems scarcely possible if one accepts Lebowitz's division between "intrinsic' and "extrinsic' levels of analysis.

The second major objection Lebowitz raises concerns the supposed implications for working-class strategies of my analysis of the geography of capital accumulation. Lebowitz here reduces an argument embracing crosscutting contradictions and complex outcomes to a single dimension in which I am supposed to imply that "everything workers do aids capital' and that workers should not seek to defend themselves through localized struggles. That is a wilful distortion and misrepresentation.

Workers need no advice from me (or Lebowitz) as to when, where, are how to struggle. Where historical and theoretical work can be helpful--though never decisive--is in identifying conditions under which such struggles may have unintended consequences. I think it undeniable (unfortunately) that struggles waged by workers have sometimes helped to stabilize rather than overthrow capitalism and that struggles waged by capitalists can likewise destabilize the social system from which they draw their nourishment (Marx gives evidence for both propositions in his chapter on the working day). To say that such outcomes may occur is not to say that all struggles are of that sort.

My study of the geography of capital accumulation shows that there is a material basis intrinsic to capitalism for the production of spatial and regional "economies' within which regional class alliances can form the objective of which is to protect capital accumulation and (perhaps) the standard of living of labor within a pattern of uneven geographical development. Interurban, interregional, and international competition are necessarily an important aspect of the way in which class struggle occurs. The neglect of this spatial dimension of class struggle (or its introduction in an ad hoc rather than systematic way) leads to serious misunderstandings.

Individual workers and working-class movements have always faced the dilemma as to how to relate to such a condition (as do individual capitalists and the different factions of capital). There are all sorts of possible combinations here and the outcomes are uncertain. Individual workers can decide to migrate (depending upon constraints) or to stay in place and fight for a better life collectively in the space they occupy. And in the event they do the latter, there are a variety of strategies open to them. Under certain conditions they may enter into a territorial alliance with other factions of capital. Whether or not such a class alliance is possible depends in part on what factions of capital also have "place specific' commitments which they find it hard to abandon (this is, I would submit, just as important a notion to analyze as Lebowitz's "quaint' belief that nothing succeeds for capitalists more than the total defeat of workers). Whether or not entry into such a territorial class alliance is possible or desirable depends on circumstances. What is certain is that there is a powerful material basis for localized class struggles and the working-class movements should not be dismissed as parochialist or duped by false consciousness for engaging in them. This is exactly the opposite implication to that which Lebowitz claims I make.

But it is also important to point out the limits to such struggles and the difficulty of bringing them to any revolutionary conclusion. For I, too, am possessed of a "quaint' belief: that workers of the world must unite to throw off their chains. And behind that slogan there lies a very important question: where does the "community' (to use a rather geographical expression) of workers begin and end in a world of uneven geographical development and unstable territorial class alliances?

Few of us, after all, can rest easily content with the idea that the future of the working class in the United States (why that territory and not some smaller or larger geographical entity?) depends simply on stemming capital flight, protecting against foreign imports (like textiles, steel, and shoes from Brazil) and trying to sock it to the Japanese. It was precisely such a narrow perspective (is that what Lebowitz supports?) that led to the conversion of crises of accumulation into geopolitical confrontations and two world wars fought (sadly) with a lot of working-class support on both sides. But that does not mean that all localized working-class action (from Hormel to Nicaragua) is "reactionary,' and it certainly does not transform international capital into any kind of progressive force (how Lebowitz can extract that thought from my argument is beyond me).

The problem--and I readily admit there is no safe and sure formula for its solution--is to identify the circumstances and forms of local struggle that have the potential to build into more progressive and global configurations, in the full recognition that territorial class alliances and uneven geographical development are basic elements within the capitalist system. Many people have struggled with such questions as: socialism in one country, does the U.S. working class really benefit from imperialism, and what are the limits to local struggle. It was my hope to show that such questions are open to theoretical analysis rather than to ad hoc adaptations once it is understood how capitalism produces its own geography. For the aim of Limits was, as Lebowitz rightly says, "to develop and incorporate the neglected sphere of spatial relations within the theory of capital in an integral manner.' Capitalism looks very different when analyzed as a geographical as well as a historical process. Hardly surprisingly, received wisdom as to what is or is not progressive class struggle has to be reevaluated in the light of that geographical dimension, understood not as a passive pattern of places that contain variegated struggles but as a produced geography that has real implications for how class struggle can and should be fought. And this is, I submit, a question that deserves a lot more systematic attention and debate if we are to find a better way out of our present dilemmas.

COPYRIGHT 1987 Monthly Review Foundation, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group