Historical MateriaUsm

Editorial introduction
The world economic crisis of 1998 provided a perfect environmem for another exercise of Robert Brenner's skills as controversialist. These he had already demonstrated in the now-classic 'Brenner debate' on the transition from feudalism to capitalism, as well as in his devastating critique of the regulation school a decade ago. Deploying his characteristic combination of self-confidence and conceptual forcefulness. Brenner has launched on the world a magisterial and thoroughly researched reinterpretation, both of the pos -war history of world capitalism and of the Marxist theory of crisis. Whether or not one agree wholeheartedly with this account, there can be no doubt that both in its liming and its form it has served as a powerful catalyst in stirring up renewed debates among Marxists on the causes, nature and consequences of capitalism's recurrent tendency to crisis. Even those who profoundly disagree with Brenner admit that the discussion stimulated by his provocative account ha served a an invaluable stimulant and goad for others to provide what they see as a more adequate and comprehensive theory. This in itself is an enormously important contribution. This is the tirst part of a ympo ium in which leading Marxists address the explanation of global crises with reference LOBrenner's Lext. This cashes out, in some way, the promissory note we proffered in the previous issue of Historical Materialism to address questions of political economy. Given the richness and variety of the contributions we received, we have taken the exceptional step of spreading this symposium over two issues. The following issue will therefore continue the discussion, with articles by Werner Bonefeld, Fran~ois Chesnais, Alan Freeman, Michel Hu son, Anwar Shaikh, Tony Smith, Richard Walker and John Weeks. Robert Brenner has also promised us a response for this issue. Of course, despite the contributors' diverse backgrounds and perspectives, some aspects of their criticisms of Brenner converge. However, we have made the decision not to edit out such overlapping, as we felt it important that each article be self-standing. We believe that the value of each contribution to the debate outweighs some small degree of repetition, and we hope readers will agree. As a general introduction, we highlight four themes uniting these very diverse articles: (i) they attempt to uncover the long-run and system-wide causes of the recent crisis and of future tendencies of the world economy; (ii) they can justifiably claim to overcome the antinomies of main tream thought, avoiding both dogma and 'postMarxist' folly; (iii) they make vivid and relevant the perennial debate within Marxist economics on value theory and on the falling rate of

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profit; (iv) they underline the interdisciplinary all the benefits and costs entailed.

nature of Marxi m - with

j) The long-run and system-wide

causes of crisis

Brenner stresses the sy tern-wide and long-run perspective of Marxism. This is a wide angle eschewed by postmodernism, yet manifestly essential to the full comprehension of global capital. It is also a view embarrassing to a mainstream economics that is unable to fathom the apparent universal power taken on by money under capitalist social relations. The contribution to the sympo ium embrace the broad perspective, if in very different, and sometime opposing, ways. They do not attribute the fundamental cause of the recent crisis merely to the mistakes of individual governments, financial institutions or other contingencies, as in orthodox explanations. Instead, any such mistakes form part of a broader picture. Two phases of post-war development stand out: a period of relatively rapid expansion of the advanced economies in the 1950s and 1960s, followed by a period of significantly slower growth triggered (but not caused) by the oil-shock of 1973 and lasting up to the present day. The respective explanations offered can be ummarised as follows. There is near unanimous agreement with Brenner's refutation of the view that rising workers' strength lies behind the secular downturn. Brenner marshals a wealth of evidence against the theory that the power of labour to push up or to maintain the level of the wage, and to lower productivity through slackening of effort levels or opposition to change at the workplace, causes the falling rate of profit and so the long downturn. This argument is very important given that the most prominent developments in crisis theory of the past twenty years - the 'social structure of accumulation' school and 'regulation theory' emphasi cd worker strength as an explanation for the downturn. Brenner recognises that even when and where the condition of labour is characterised by relative weakness, crisis is still endemic. This emphasis on relative weakness is central to the accounts offered by Clarke and Lebowitz. This is strikingly different to the mainstream and media consensus that sees union strength as the source of all economic ills. Brenner's own view, defended by Wood below, is that the intensity of world competition within the manufacturing sector, as both Japan and West Germany steadily caught up with the US in the post-war period, led to the rapid and unforeseen obsolescence of masse of US fixed capital. It was this that generated the falling rate of profit from the mid- 1960s and hence a crisis. Brenner argues that the crisis became a secular downturn because the sunk costs of US manufacturers, combined with Keynesian fiscal policies, ensured there was insufficient exit from the industry, even as new entry from other economies, such as the Asian 'tigers', further intensified competition.

Historical Materialism

For Dumenil and Levy. a secular decline in the physical productivity of capilal. due 10 unfavourable technical change, lies at the heart of Ihe falling rate of profit and resulting crisis. Ongoing cia s struggle over wages helps explain variations around the secular trend. This view comes nellre!\t to that of the regulation approach within the symposium, especially given that Dumenil and Levy consider institutions to have a central role in mediating class struggle. Both Moseley and Smith argue that the much-debated distinction between productive and unproductive labour is key to prom-rale decline. According to these authors, a secular rise in the proportion of labour that is unproductive of surplus-value has occurred which ha taken its Lollon the rate of prulll. Moseley 5uggests that, infer alia, the inherent inability of technological advance to replace sale function (which are necessary but unproductive of value according to Moseley's argument) is one recent factor contributing to the relative increase in unproductive labour. Harman. endorsed by Callinico, argues that the notion of a 'permanent arms economy' can explain the trends in the rate of prolil and so global economic development. On this view, military spending serves to dampen accumulation which would olherwi e. in the absence of other countervailing factor, raise the ratio of constant to variable capital and hence lower the prollt rate and generate crisi . The high US (and USSR) military spending in the 1950s and 19605 is the key to explaining lhe relative success of the period. The concomitantly growing competitiveness of West Germany and Japan explains the downturn. Clarke is one of the few dissenters from the view that the magnitude of the rate of profit is central to crisis theory. He argues that Brenner is right to stress overproduction and overaccumulation, but Ihat Brenner fails to nesh out an explanation as to why exactly the process of accumulation should neces arily tend to overheat (a criticism also made by Laibman, Carchedi and others). Clarke summarise his own interpretation of Marx's crisis theory where the role of fixed capilal and of money and credit are integrated. Carchedi also develops a crisis theory which incorporales the role of money and credi and suggests brieny how exchange-rate theory might also be incorporated.

ii) Overcoming the antinomies

of mainstream

thought

Brenner stresse competition between capitals (the 'horizontal' relations between different capitals). Lebowi/:Zargues that Marx, by contrast and for good reason. emphasi es the (vertical) struggle between capital and labour at the level of 'capital-in-general' - a level which is 'essential' such thaI competition is merely the illusory form in which capital appears to the individual. It is just this claim thaI Wood - like Brenner contests. It is competition, not capital-in-general, that has causal (and historical) priority according to Wood. This sort of debate, between two
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historians and a number of economists and philosophers is rare but very revealing, and is one we hope to encourage. The debate over horizontal and vertical relations relates to the antinomies of social theory. Take, for example, the structure-agency opposition. Brenner states he wants reconciliation of structural laws and agents' motivations. And, indeed, we do not find a rigid split or failure of interpenetration of the two. The critic will search the symposium in vain for the purely structural Jaws of capital or purely subjective course of class struggle. Lebowitz agrees that structural laws arise through the actions of individuals but argue that it is possible and in fact necessary to comprehend abstract structures first and only later bring agency into the analysis.

iii) Classic debates in Marxist economics Closely related to the vertical/horizontal issue, the symposium reopens the old controversies of Marxi ts economics: Marx's value theory and the associated 'transformation problem'; crisis theory, including the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and the associated problem of the 'Okishio theorem'. Brenner explicitly addressed only the Okishio theorem (endorsing it), though this also gives rise indirectly to a revealing insight into his view of Marx's theory of value. All contributor , with the exception of Wood, Dum~nil and Levy and Laibman, criticise the Okishio theorem. ot only are vivid restatements of some of the original arguments of the debate rehearsed (for example Clarke, Harman) but many very recent developments on value theory are represented. Carchedi champions 'temporal ingle system' theory, which is vehemently opposed to the approaches to Marx's value theory based on static equilibrium analysis. Elsewhere, Dumenil and Levy have made key contributions to the 'new solution' to the 'transformation problem', entailing the 'new interpretation' of value theory. Moseley has suggested that the transformation problem is based on a [aulty methodological approach (that of 'linear production theory') which, amongst other things, can provide no room for Marx's ophisticated analysis of value and money. Moseley draws from 'systematic dialectics' in order to put forward his position. Whatever the reader's opinion of the various theoretical positions sketched out below, the symposium certainly suggests the continued pertinence of 'old' debates in Marxist economics. Each po ition in these debates is made vivid and relevant by its location within the explanation of highly important system-wide and long-run phenomena, with each explanation clearly connected to different views on value theory and the Okishio theorem. This continued relevance, coupled with the aforementioned attempt to overcome the antinomies of socia] thought, gives the lie to the sentiment expressed by the editorial introduction to Brenner's New Left Review article (an introduction that Brenner does not endorse), that Marxist debates regarding value theory and the
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HIstorical MaterlaUsm

falling rate of profit are stale, mechanistic and generally involve outmoded deductions with no basis in social reality.

Iv) Interdlsciplinarlty Brenner's perspective ovcrarches history and economics. This intrinsic inrerdisciplinarity has opened the field for a great variety of disciplinary perspectives on these questions. Writers traditionally specialising in history. sociology, philosophy, politics, as well as economics, have all participated in this debate. This new 'Brenner debate' has highlighted difficult philosophical arguments over method and history, and the suspicion or even fear of mathematics or value theory debates among t some noneconomists. These continued points of tension between economists and others illustrate the recalcitrance of academic disciplinary boundaries. We can examine this problem more closely through the lens of Brenner's relation to Marx's value theory. Whichever position one takes on this question, it is clear that further debate across disciplinary divides is vital (as Laibman's contribution points out). There is a clear split such that no economi t in this symposium agrees with Brenner's theory. All his supporters are outside of economics profession. Also. all economist contributors interpret Brenner as rejecting Marx's value categories. yet Brenner himself insists he does no such thing. Some of the non -economist contributors espouse Brenner's view regardless (Wood); some are willing to attribute Marx's value theory to Brenner (an excellent example being Tony Smith. whose contribution is to be published in the next issue). Overall. then, we must recognise the tenacious existence of bourgeois academic disciplinary boundaries - the different tacit assumptions and histories they institutionalise - even as, and in the process of, breaking them down.