Accumulation and Technology

Steindl, Josef

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Document type:: Works

Collection:: Josef Steindl Collection

Title:: Accumulation and Technology: Exemplar 2

Author:: Steindl, Josef

Scope:: Typoskript, 25 Blätter, mit zahlreichen handschriftlichen Anstreichungen

Year of publication:: 1984

Source material date:: [vermutlich um/vor 1984]

Note:: Exemplar 2 (Exemplar 1 mit anderen handschriftlichen Anmerkungen siehe AL00656752).

Shelfmark:: S/M.5.2

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.48671/nls.js.AC14446022

4 The Motive of Accumulation Marx's chapter on accumulation deals with the following topics: 1. The relation between accumulation and distribution 2. The role of technical progress which contributes decisively to the supply of labour necessary for continued accumulation; in the event»however, technical progress may produce more labour than is necessary for accumulation. 3. Two features which are connected with the technical progress and accumulation: The increase in capital intensity of production and the concentration of capital. To start with I shall comment on a question which will be raised in everybody's mind: Jf accumulation is the driving force in capitalism, what is it that in its turn explains accumulation? Reading Marx you often get the impression that it is a drive characteristic of capitalism which needs no further explanation ( " Accumulate, accumulate, that is Moses and all the prophets" ). While this recalls Max Weber one thinks at the same time also of the "animal spirits" of Keynes. At times you get hints.that competition and technical progress in combination force the individual capitalist to invest so as to improve his methods of production ("Here it takes all the running you can do to remain in the same spot" - Lewis Carrol - the red queen ). Indeed, this does apply to some extent to the technological industries on a world scale. It presupposes however that accumulation and technical progress are already there, though it may partly explain how they are kept going. We should like, however, to have a quantitative explanation of the trend value of accumulation ( only this, hot the cyclical

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