Title: Marxist Geopolitics 1: The Value of Marx
1Marxist Geopolitics (1) The Value of Marx
2Aims of Lecture
- Introduce Marxs notion of primitive
accumulation, labor theory of value, and
crisis of accumulation - Explore Luxemburg and Lenins ideas on Capitalism
and Imperialism - Relate this to Harveys concept of the spatial
fix
3The BBCs 2005 Greatest Philosopher poll
1. Karl Marx, 27.93!
6. Immanuel Kant, 5.61
2. David Hume, 12.67
7. St. Thomas Aquinas, 4.83
Marxs work offers a stunning prediction of the
nature and effects of globalization, according
to historian Eric Hobsbawm
3. Ludwig Wittgenstein, 6.80
8. Socrates, 4.82
4. Friedrich Nietzsche, 6.49
9. Aristotle, 4.52
5. Plato, 5.65
10. Karl Popper, 4.20
4Karl Marx 1818-1883
- Considered classical economics liberal
philosophy superficial in 2 major ways - (i) It treats capitalism as a system which
evolved naturally rather than through struggle,
conflict and dispossession - primitive
accumulation - (ii) It describes only surface details of
- capitalism - commodity fetishism.
-
- Marxs approach is known as dialectic materialism
5The French Revolution, 1789
What Hegel had declared a history ending
revolution was, for Marx, only the first stage in
what would be a worldwide proletarian
revolution Liberalism had overthrown the
monarchy and the landed aristocracy but it had
also replaced them with a new elite of
capitalists the bourgeoisie The Declaration
of the Rights of Man and Citizen, may have
asserted that all men are born free and equal
but in reality society was still divided
according to the owners of production (capital)
and The workers (labor)
6Condition of the Working Classes
- When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon
another such injury that death results, we call
the deed manslaughter when the assailant knew in
advance that the injury would be fatal, we call
his deed murder. But when society places
hundreds of proletarians in such a position that
they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural
death, one which is quite as much a death by
violence as that by the sword or bullet when it
deprives thousands of the necessaries of life,
places them under conditions in which they cannot
live -- forces them, through the strong arm of
the law, to remain in such conditions until that
death ensues which is the inevitable consequence
-- knows hat these thousands of victims must
perish, and yet permits these conditions to
remain, its deed is murder - Friedrich Engels, 1845
7Primitive accumulation - the original sin
- The historical process of divorcing the
producer from the means of production,
transforming the social means of subsistence and
of production into capital and the immediate
producers into wage laborers. - Marx, 1967714
-
Once producers are forced to freely sell their
labor, accumulation takes place through
extraction of surplus labor time
8- The capitalist now has the 3 commodities he
needs -
- (i) raw materials (steel, rubber, plastic)
- fixed capital
- (ii) tools, machines, fuel, factory etc.
-
- and
-
- (ii) labor
- variable capital - During production the value of all these inputs
is transferred to the commodity. - So, how does the capitalist make profit?.
-
-
9Wage Labor Theory of Value
- It takes 6 hours for a worker to produce 12
cokes _at_ 1 each - (1 hour 2 cokes 2 value created)
- 9am 3pm
- 9am -------------------------------------5pm
- 3pm?------?5pm
- average time to produce 12 cokes 6 hours
- --- actual hours worked 8 hours
- --- surplus labor time 2 hours
- No. of cokes produced 16
- Your income 16
- Wages paid 12
- Profit 4
- The worker is unaware of his exploitation
-
- But how can the capitalist ? profits?
10Invest in new technology!
- Now, it takes 4 hours for a worker produces 12
coke bottles. - You undercut competitors, selling _at_ 92 cents
each, making a windfall! - (1 hour 3 cokes 9 value created)
-
- 9am 3pm
- 9am -------------------------------------5pm
- 1pm?-------------?5pm
- average labor time to produce 12 cokes 6
hours - --- actual hours worked, 8 hours
- --- YOUR surplus labor time 4 hrs
- Cokes produced in a day 24
- Your income 22
- Wages paid 12
- Profit 10
To provide credit for investment a huge
banking/financial system emerges
11Then, so do your competitors
Now everyone produces 12 cokes in 4 hours and
the average price starts to fall.to 67 cents (1
hour 3 cokes 2 value created, Wage 12
p/d)
3pm?------?5pm 9am -------------------------------
-------5pm 9am 3pm average labor
time to produce 18 cokes, 6 hours --- actual
hours worked, 8 hours --- surplus labor time, 2
hour No. of cokes actually produced 24 Your
income 16 Wages paid 12 Profit 4
12Crisis of accumulation
So, as competitors adopt the same technology,
profits tend to decline You have to try to
exploit workers more and more, even as they are
producing more and morethey become politicized
as they realize they are being exploited
how can you ? profits again?...
13Postponing the crisis
- Marx suggests the answer is a widespread
destruction of value - - destroy value of money through inflation
- - destroy value of labor by drawing on reserve
armies of workers - - destroy the value in commodities by burning
excess - Marx explains that this is why capitalism is
always prone towards cycles of boom-and-bust, and
why inequalities would continue to grow between
capital and labor - Marx also asserted that the contradictions of
capitalism would ultimately lead the bourgeoisie
on a chase across the globe but he never fully
developed a theory of capitalism and imperialism
14Luxembourg Imperialism and Consumption
- Rosa Luxemburg argued that the crisis was
primarily based on under-consumption, since
capitalists paid their workers production
increased more quickly than consumption - Therefore, rich nations had to violently colonize
societies in the non-capitalist world in order
to find new consumers for surplus commodities. - So, primitive accumulation is ongoing
- However, they also prevented these parts
- of the world from developing as capitalist
- states so as to avoid creating competition
151500s-1800s
16From Imperialism to Ultra-imperialism?
- The era from mid to late 19th century is
considered to be the first round of global
free-trade - Some Marxist theorists envisaged the decline of
nation-state rivalries over territory and
resources with the emergence of huge
transnational corporations - In 1914, Karl Kautsky called this
- new phase of capitalist expansion as
- ultra-imperialism
17Lenin and WW I
- Lenin (1965) criticized Kautsky and instead
predicted that the rise of industrial-financial
monopolies in the West would lead to
inter-imperial rivalry as nations south to
protect their colonies and scramble for new
regions
A few weeks later, World War I breaks out
followed by revolution in Russia
18Echoes of Mackinder?
- Free-trading, peace-loving Lancashire has been
supported by the force of the Empire....Both Free
Trade of the laissez-faire type and Protection of
the predatory type are policies of Empire, and
both make for War. Mackinder, 1919
19Economic turbulence 1919-1939
- Economic chaos followed however, culminating in
the Great Depression in 1929 - In the US, FDR initiated New Deal programs,
running government deficits to fund public work
schemes and stimulate the economy - In Europe, this chaos enabled the rise of Fascism
in Germany, Italy and Spain, leading to WWII
20Bretton-Woods, 1944
21Post-World War II
Keynesianism - state invests in public
utilities - supports social wage with welfare
benefits
Fordism- wages tied to productivity
increases - promotes mass consumption
The Marshall Plan helps generate a boom in US
manufacturing
22- And in the Global South, new moves for
independence and improving terms of trade - industrialization
- import substitution
- some government subsidies
- some support for welfarism (affordable education,
healthcare etc.) - Much of this was paid for by
- loans from offshore US
- banks
23(No Transcript)
24but crisis returns as manufacturing profits
decline
From Brenner, 2002
25along govt. deficits increase
26Spatial Fix (Harvey, 1982)
Cheaper fuel, rent
?
?
cheaper raw materials
and cheaper labor!
?
27Devalued capital
28- Now, your commodities are being sold at prices
still set in the US -
-
-
But they are being produced in a part of the
world where subsistence wages are much lower
Imagine how quickly someone could create value
equivalent to their wages. Imagine all that
surplus labor time turning into
29Tomorrow
- The rise of neoliberalism
- Read the chapter on Neoliberalism as Creative
Destruction by David Harvey