The Determining Articulation in an Autocentric System

The determining articulation in an autocentric system is the one linking sector 2 (the production of mass consumption goods) to sector 4 (the production of indus­trial plant that enables the production of sector 2).

Marx does indeed show that in the world of capitalist production there is an objective relationship (that is to say, necessary) between the rate of surplus value and the level of development of the productive forces. The rate of surplus value essentially determines the structure and social distribution of the revenue (its divi­sion between the wage earners and the surplus value that takes the form of profit and hence, that of demand (as it is the wage earners who constitute most of the demand for mass consumption goods, the profits are totally or partially ‘saved’ with a view to being ‘invested’). The level of development of the productive forces is expressed in the social division of labour: the allocation of the work force, in appropriate proportions, to sections 2 and 4 (sections 2 and 1 in Marx’s reproduc­tion model). This objective relation, although fundamental in Capital, has often been ‘forgotten’, particularly in the debate on the tendency of the rate of profit to diminish. The argument, often put forward, that the increase in the organic com­position of capital can be compensated by that of the rate of surplus value loses it coherence as soon as one realizes that the contradiction between the capacity of the system to produce and its capacity to consume—inherent in the capitalist mode of production—is constantly being overcome and this explains the objec­tive character of the relationship between the rate of surplus value and the level of development of the productive forces.

(1) because it reveals the origin of profit (which requires a prior theory of value) and get rid of economic rationality as an absolute quality, restoring it to its real status of rationality in a system and not rationality independent of the system, as Piero Sraffa has rediscovered so brilliantly^[I]; (2) because it shows that the eco­nomic choices made in this system are necessarily sub-optimal, showing the ideo- logical—i.e., non scientific—character of the marginalist constructions of ‘general equilibrium’; and (3) because it demonstrates that the ‘real wage’ cannot be ‘any old wage’ and that it therefore gives an objective status to social power relationships.

The objective relation in question is expressed in the conjunctural fluctuations of activities and unemployment. An increase in the rate of surplus value above its objectively necessary level leads to a crisis, when there is insufficient effec­tive demand. A reduction of this rate slows down economic growth and therefore creates labour conditions that are favourable for capital. As we have shown, this adjustment—which indeed corresponds to the history of the accumulation of the industrial revolution at the time of the 1930 crisis (a history marked by the eco­nomic cycle) is now more complex because the influence of this secondary effect in wage variations on the choice of techniques is responsible for the suboptimal character of the economic system. The tendency towards full employment (which does not exclude but, on the contrary, involves a small margin of permanent unem­ployment) as well as substantial conjunctural fluctuations of unemployment show how this system functions. The internal transformations of contemporary capital­ism have removed the functionality of this adjustment mechanism. The monopo­lization of capital on the one hand and the organization of workers at the national level on the other, made possible ‘planning’ that was aimed at reducing conjunc- tural fluctuations.

Except that obviously some sectors of the society can, by refusing the ‘con­tract’, cause trouble. This is especially the case of the small and medium enterprises who will be the ones to suffer from the concentration and who can— especially in relatively backward structures—carry out more or less effective political blackmail. Also except that foreign relations are not subject to this kind of planning. The contradiction is growing between the global character of pro­duction—illustrated by the increasing weight of the multinational corporations— and the continuing national character of institutions, both capital and labour. The social-democrat ideology expressed in this type of social contract, is limited by the borders of the national state.

Schematic as this model may seem—it is evidently an abstraction of reality—it nevertheless captures the essence of the system. In this model, foreign relations are made abstract, which means, not that the development of capitalism operates in an autarchic national framework, but that the essential relations in the system can be grasped by making an abstraction of them. Besides, the foreign relations of the developed regions as a whole with the periphery of the world system remain quantitatively marginal in comparison with the internal flows within the cen­tre. These relations, furthermore, help primitive accumulation, and not expanded reproduction and it is for this reason such abstraction is valid.

The historically relative character of the distinction between mass consump­tion goods and luxury goods is also apparent here. The demand from wage earn­ers expands with economic growth—the progress of the productive forces.

3.2