Part 10: Marxian Theory Series.
‘Descendence-Phase’
Capitalism.
GLOBAL STRATEGIC
HYPOTHESES.
Dear Reader,
It
is my pleasure,
and my honor, as an elected member
of the Foundation Encyclopedia Dialectica [F.E.D.]
General Council, and
as a voting member of F.E.D., to share, with you, from time to time, as they are approved for public release by the F.E.D. General Council, Foundation discourses on key elements of Seldonian Psychohistorical Theory.
The 10th text in
this new such series is posted below
[Some E.D.
standard edits have been applied, in the version presented below, by the editors
of the F.E.D. Special Council for the Encyclopedia,
to the direct transcript of our co-founder’s
discourse].
Seldon
–
“As We often say, ‘dialectic is the cause of time’ –
hence also of natural history as a whole, to-date, and, therefore also,
of Terran human history as a “natural”, and ‘foreseeable-in-retrospect’,
extension thereof.”
“As We also often say, ‘intra-duality – starting with
the ‘intra-duality’, we hypothesize, of “Dark Energy” physical space self-expansion, versus
the “Dark Matter” opposition to that expansion – is the cause of dialectic’.”
“Moreover,
we conjecture that this initial, «arché»-ic ‘intra-duality’
–
“Dark
Energy” # “Dark Matter”
--
continually begets new, lower-scale, local, derivative, subsidiary and more
complex ‘intra-dualities’, that further extend the progression of ‘natural-historical’,
including of ‘human-natural-historical’, dialectics.
“This
extension has, by now in natural history, extended all the way to the
‘intra-duality’ of the capitalist system of ‘human-societal self-reproduction’,
and to its two-sub-epochs’ historical-dynamical destiny, i.e., of its self-development,
followed by, and leading to, its ‘concrete self-transcendence’, as the ‘“eu-catastrophic”’
branch of its possible outcomes.”
“The
‘intra-duality’ of the capitalist system, that gives rise to its two-sub-epochal
historical dialectic, is the internal duality of capital as “self-expanding
value” [Marx], versus capital ‘self-contracting value’ – the
latter being the theoretically neglected side or pole of capital’s
‘intra-duality’, neglected to an extent even by Marx himself.”
“The
two historical sub-epochs of the capitalist system, into which the history of
capitalism “naturally” divides itself, are what we call its initial, ‘ascendence phase’,
followed by its, final, ‘descendence phase’.”
“The
essence of these two phases is as follows.”
“The
‘ascendence phase’ of capitalism is the historical sub-epoch,
from circa 1500 C.E./B.U.E. to circa 1913-1918 C.E./B.U.E., in
which the ‘capital as self-expanding value’ pole of capitalism’s
‘intra-duality’ is dominant over its opposite, ‘capital as ‘self-contracting
value’ pole, and in which, therefore, the world market rate of profit on
capital is tendentially and predominantly rising.”
“The
‘descendence phase’ of capitalism is the historical sub-epoch,
since »1913 C.E./B.U.E., in
which the ‘capital as self-contracting value’ pole of
capitalism’s ‘intra-duality’ is dominant over its opposite, ‘capital as
‘self-expanding value’ pole, and, therefore, the world market rate
of profit on capital is tendentially and predominantly falling.”
“During
the ‘ascendence phase’ of capitalism, social productivity – the
level of the “social forces of production” [Marx] – are low relative to what
comes later in the self-development of capitalism.”
“A
lot of the “means of production” and “fixed capital” of capitalist, e.g.,
mining and manufacture, consist of pick axes, shovels, hammers, and other
hand-held tools.”
“Now,
suppose a competing capitalist applied to ‘s production an
invention of a more-productive and/or cheaper shovel.”
“Suppose
further that this capitalist’s capitalist competitors were forced, in order to
keep their output competitive against ‘s
output on price, to scrap their old, more-expensive/less-productive shovels,
and buy the new, more competitive shovels, subtracting the
undepreciated portion of the original cost of the old shovels from their
current profits.”
“Well,
most likely, the old shovels were just not that expensive, hence
the resulting lowering of profits not that taxing for those
competitors.”
“However,
as capitalism – as humanity’s incarnation of “the capital-relation” as
predominant ‘social relation of human-societal self-re-production’ –
self-develops during that ‘ascendence phase’, tools become
progressively more productive, more complex, more massive, and
more expensive, especially as motor-powered, not just
human-muscle-powered, machinery takes an expanding role in
mining, in manufacture, and even in agriculture.”
“Consequently
upon that rising productivity – i.e., due to that rising “productive force”
[Marx] – the part of the working day in which workers produce products whose
value covers their wages shrinks.”
“Therefore,
the rest of the working day, the part of the working day in which workers produce
products whose value, once sold, are the source of the capitalists’ profit, expands.”
“Thus
also, the rate of profit on capital, the ratio of the monetary value of gross
profits less costs, i.e., net profits, divided by the cost of
the capital invested to produce those profits – principally the cost of the
means of production invested and used to produce those profits – tendentially
increases.”
“However,
this rising profitability incentivizes other competing capitalists, including
first-time new-entrant capitalists, to apply inventions of even more
productive, and even lower cost-to-produce-and/or-to-operate, higher in
“productive force” means of production, machinery, “fixed capital” plant and
equipment.”
“Capitalist
competitors using the older, less-productive and/or more-costly-to-produce/operate,
and now technologically obsolescent fixed capital are soon forced, to
remain competitive against the new, higher “productive force” fixed capital, to
scrap their old, now-obsolete fixed capital.”
“That,
now-obsolete, fixed capital was, by then, likely expensive enough that they had
to take out, e.g., 30-year bank loans to afford it, bank loans on which they
must continue to pay debt-service for the rest of those 30 years, and, to buy
the new fixed capital, forced to take out yet new ~30 year loans, to afford the
new.”
“The
old competitors are thus at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis the
new. And further ‘‘‘growth of productive
force’’’ continued to deepen that disadvantage.”
“The
[theoretically-neglected] side of the ‘intra-duality’ of capital begins to
drive a secular fall in the rate of capital profitability in “machine industry”
[Veblen].”
“The
decrements to fixed capital asset value – the increments
of capital’s self-contraction – subtracted out of gross profit in each
accounting period in which ‘techno-depreciation’-induced decrements are
recognized, tendentially drive down profit rates in each accounting period in
which ‘techno-depreciation’ events register.”
“By
circa 1870 C.E./B.U.E., and from then through circa 1890
C.E./B.U.E., U.S. industry, and U.S. industrial capitalists,
experienced a “Great [Techno-]Deflation” in the competition-deflated prices of
consumer and other products of “machine industry”, similar to the fall in unit
prices, accompanied by a rapid rise in utility, in just the category of
consumer computer electronic devices in the 1970s-1990s”.
“But,
in the late 1800s “Great Deflation”, prices dropped broadly across a wide range
of commodity categories for commodities produced by “machine industry”.”
“Also,
capitalist industrialization was then spreading rapidly across the planet, and
into new nation-states, with relatively low wages, little legacy of
technologically obsolescent fixed capital, and with ability to adopt the
latest, most advanced fixed capital from the start of their capitalist
industrializations.”
“The
U.S. and U.K. concentrated owners of vast expanses of industrial fixed capital
soon realized, from these experiences, and from the studies they ordered their
intellectual servants to undertake – studies of new advanced socio-economic
theorists such as Marx and Veblen – that they would soon be bankrupted, and
therefore dethroned from their power, by the further growth of the industrial
“forces of production” in world-market competition.”
“These
legacy capitalists reacted violently to this threat to their power.”
“They
sponsored new ideologies, like “Social Darwinism” and “Eugenics”, to justify
the horrors that they were already planning, to overcome this threat to their
power – the threat of the further growth of the “social forces of production”
[Marx].”
“They
imposed upon the United States the Federal Reserve “Central Bank”, and the
Personal Income Tax, both in 1913 C.E./B.U.E.”
“The
Federal Reserve then printed the paper money to afford the massive U.S. loans,
to the U.K. and France, to finance their fomenting and conduct of the
mass-murderous “World War I”, with the aim to reverse the advanced-technology,
advanced fixed-capital, meteoric productive-forces rise of
industrial-capitalist Germany to capitalist world hegemony, which was ruining,
in the process, both the British aristocrat-capitalist hybrid ruling class, and
its global colonial slave-empire, and the U.S. capitalist ruling class,
especially via the rapid ‘techno-depreciation’ of U.S. and U.K. fixed capital,
and the resulting fall in U.S. and U.K. profits on industrial fixed capital. …”
TO
BE CONTINUED.
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¡ENJOY!
Regards,
Miguel
Detonacciones,
Voting Member, Foundation Encyclopedia Dialectica [F.E.D.];
Elected Member, F.E.D. General Council;
Participant, F.E.D. Special Council for Public Liaison;
Officer, F.E.D. Office of Public Liaison.
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