Economic Crisis and Socialist Revolution: Henryk Grossman’s Law of accumulation, Its First Critics and His Responses
Henryk Grossman was the first person to systematically explore Marx’s explanation of capitalist crises in terms of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall and to place it in the context of the distinction between use and exchange value. His The law of accumulation and breakdown of the capitalist system remains an important reference point in the Marxist literature on economic crises. That literature has been plagued by distortions of Grossman’s position which derive from early hostile reviews of his book. These accused Grossman of a mechanical approach to the end of capitalism and of neglecting factors which boost profit rates. Grossman, in fact, contributed a complementary economic element to the recovery of Marxism undertaken by Lenin (particularly in the area of Marxist politics) and Lukacs (in philosophy). In both published and unpublished work, Grossman also dealt with and even anticipated criticisms of his methodology and treatment of countertendencies to the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. Far from being mechanical, his economic analysis can still assist the struggle for working class self-emancipation.
Theory of the Crisis and the Problem of Constitution
It is still widely held that the theory of the crisis and collapse of the capitalist system is inherited from the positivist deformation of the “Marxism of the Second International,” and that it thus implies ideological support for reformist politics. Ten years ago, Raniero Panzieri wrote: “As a matter of fact, Marxist thought since Marx has recognized the appearance of a ‘turn’ in the system with the development of monopoly capitalism and of imperialism around the 1870s (which today appears to us as a transitional period in relation to the ‘turn’ that began in the 1930s and is now being completed).
Archaeology and mud wall decay in a West African village
Abstract A detailed study of the processes of deterioration of mud walls and of the physical evolution and devolution of a contemporary West African village is seen to facilitate the location of decayed mud structures at a nearby archaeological site. Various climatic and pedological conditions at the site make it unlikely that such walls will be discerned. The archaeologist wishing to obtain the fullest and least biased picture of the settlement configuration of the ancient community should therefore heed all the inferential lessons to be had from a focused ethnographic investigation. Given similar climatic situations and practices of house construction, taphonomy and ethnographic analogies may both be necessary for a valid reconstruction of an archaeological settlement.