DJP wrote:Overproduction is

[robbo203]

DJP wrote:

Overproduction is the form that crisis take in capitalism (underproduction was the form of crisis in pre-capitalist societies) but this is altogether different thing than to say that are its cause. No overproduction, no crisis – no road accident, no cars colliding. In saying one causes the other is not to say very much, in fact its completely meaningless.The ultimate cause of crisis surely has to be in the anarchy of production itself, producers do not know that there is a buyer for their commodities until after they have been put on the market.But this does not explain why a crisis should occur at one time and not another. I think this can only be understood by looking at profit rates, credit bubbles etc.

 I don’t think “anarchy of production” per se is the ultimate cause of crises. After  all,  unless you are an advocate of society-wide central planning in which the totality of inputs and outputs are consciously coordinated in an apriori sense within a single vast plan –  an absurd idea – then socialism too will be based too an an extent  on an “anarchic”, self regulating or spontaneously ordered system of production involving the mutual adjustment  of a multitude of plans to each other. Actually , there is no other way in which a large scale complex system of production can be run.. While anarchy of prediction  does indeed give rise to the possibility  of disproportionate growth, in socialism this does not present a problem. If a particular production unit or industrial sector has overproduced in relation to the demand for its products  – something which it will be able to very easily able to see from the build up of stock – this can be easily remedied by  simply curtailing  or slowing  down production. . This is an example of  what I mean by mutual adjustment. Its a feedback system In capitalism, however, this self same disproportionate growth  can lead to huge problems and ultimately economic crises and the key to understanding why this is so is contained in Marx’s aphoristic comment concerning “the very connection between the mutual claims and obligations, between purchases and sales” within a capitalist system (Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 11, 4c).  Its is this connection that creates the possibility of knock on effects that hugely amplify the consequences of disproportionate growth that periodically plunge capitalism into crisis. Workers laid off in one sector of the economy have less to spend on consumer goods produced in other sectors. Likewise the demand for producer goods declines which effects firms producing these goods who in turn lay off their workers and so on and so forth.Its is in this way that disproportionate growth can spiral out of control under capitalism .  In socialism since this” very connection” no longer exists disproportionate growth no longer presents a serious problem