DR. SHRIKANT JICHKAR

Minister of State for Information and Public Relations, GAD, Energy, Finance and Protocol M.B.B.S., M.D., D.B.M., M.B.A., B. Journ., LL.M (International Law), M.A. (Public Administration), M.A. (Sociology), M.A. (Economics), M.A. (Sanskrit), M.A. (History), Ex-I.A.S. and ex-I.P.S.

"Human history fares like palaeontology", wrote Marx to Engels in his letter dated March 25, 1868. This is a remarkable observation in the materialist interpretation of the developing historiography of social formations of human beings. We all know the contributions of Darwin in the evolution of species. The story of the friendship between Darwin and Marx is greatly interesting. They exchanged letters and Marx fully utilised his researches for his own understanding of the evolution of the capitalist society to socialist society.
Marx And Darwin
"Darwin's book is very important and serves me as a natural scientific basis for class struggle", wrote Marx on January 16, 1861 in a letter to Lassalle. In a letter to Engels, on June 18, 1862. Marx expressed on Darwin, "it is remarkable how Darwin recognises among beasts and plants his English society with its division of labour, competition, opening of new markets and the Malthusian 'struggle for existence' .... in Darwin the animal kingdom figures as civil society".
"I have read it (Darwin's book) with much interest. I too was struck, the very first time I read Darwin, with the remarkable likeness between his account of plants and animal life and the Malthusian theory" wrote Marx to F. A. Lange on March 9 1865.
Engels wrote to his Russian friend Mr. P. L. Laurov on November 12, 1875. "On the Darwinian doctrine I accept the theory of evolution. "In this letter, Engels explained struggle for existence as Darwinist manifestation of the workers as people during the period of depression. The means of production lying idle during the depression phase, Engels suggested, should be used for production for living. This was his endorsement of struggle for existence. "The whole Darwinist teaching of the struggle for existence is simply a transference from society to living nature of Hobbes's doctrine of a war of all against all", wrote Engels in this letter.
Historiography Of Palaeontology Of Society
These expressions of Marx and Engels from the stand-point of philosophy are relevant in the history of society like history of evolutions in the species. Hence Marx said, "Human history fares like palaeontology". Formations of life in science of Darwin and formation of society in Marxism as science' are palaeontology in essence. From metaphysics of unknowable, we reach the knowledge and knowable truths of the future. Hence Marx's title of scientific socialism.
Matter moves in universe. This fundamental principle is explained by Marx in all formations of visible forms in palaeontology as well as society. The cell of the physiology explains the functioning physiology. The economic cell, the commodity, reveals the formation of the economy. This is cognised in the laws of science. In the criticism of Feubarback, Engels makes a statement of universal significance. The manifestation is visible. The process is, however, hidden in the obvious manifestation. The knowledge of the process therefore is true knowledge.
The difference between metaphysics and philosophy is the history of the knowledge of process. The Kantian truth in-itself becomes knowledge when the process is established. All phases of metaphysics have become knowledge of physics and related sciences because the scientists have discovered the process. Similarly, knowledge of animals and plants has been known as Darwinism. Marxism partakes the form of .Darwinism specially and science generally because, it lays down the methodology to know the processes that explain the historiography of economic societies. We have moved from feudalism to capitalism. We know the process. Now we are moving from capitalism to socialism. We must know the process.
The synonymous nature of the evolution in Darwinism and movement from capitalism to socialism has been beautifully delineated by Paul Lafargue. It may be interesting to know that Paul Lafargue was a medical doctor and was the son-in-law of Marx. He wrote 'Reminiscences of Marx' which explains Marx as a scholar.
"Marx held the view that science must be pursued for itself, irrespective of the eventual results of researches, but at the same time that a scientist could only debase himself by giving up active participation in public life or shutting himself up in his study or laboratory lie a maggot in cheese and holding aloof from the life and political struggle of his contemporaries."
Method Of Marx
This assessment of intellectuals in science and also social science like economics is greatly relevant today when we are faced with problems of evolution towards socialist society. Lafargue summarises in the briefest possible way, the method followed by Marx. This is as under :?
"Marx begins by stating the plain fact that the wealth of a society dominated by the capitalist mode of production presents itself as an enormous accumulation of commodities; the commodity which is a concrete object, not a mathematical abstraction is therefore the element, the cell, of capitalist wealth. Marx now seizes on the commodity, turns it over and over and inside out, and pries out of it one secret after another that official economists were riot in the least aware of, although those secrets are more numerous and profound than all the mysteries of the catholic religion. Having examined the commodity in its aspects, Marx considers it in its felloe commodity in exchange. Then he goes on to its production and the historic pre-requisites for its production. He considers the forms which commodities assume and shows how they pass from one to another how one form is necessarily engendered by the other. He expounds the logical course of development of the phenomenon with such perfect art that one could think he had imagined it. And yet it is a product of reality, a reproduction of the actual dialectics of commodity."
Lafargue in this passage outlines the history of capitalism in "the actual dialectics of the commodity." We know the epistemology of the commodity. The products became commodities in the development of political economy. Commodity in its evolution is therefore is itself a phenomenology. The capitalist economy as a phenomenon is the phenomenology of commodity. The appearance of the phenomenon, its development and its disappearance is the subject matter of the study of the political economy. The commodity is a cardinal unity of utility and Value. Marx and Marxian literature use use-value to explain utility, and exchange value to explain value and its further transformation into prices. The dialectical process is governing the phenomenology of commodities in capitalism.
The Development Path
The dialectical process has its own developmental path. The terms, change and development are associated with the path. Change may mean destruction, but development connotes ascend and qualitative transformation. This is described by the philosophical term, sublation, supersession, transcendence etc. in the Hegelian lexicon that explains thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis.
Hegel's sublation stands for simultaneous cancellation and preservation of something. Hegel used the term sublation to characterise the movement of the absolute idea. Each of its given states is sublated by a superior one which accounts for the continuity of stages in development. Thus in the triad, the supreme category (synthesis) of the process both cancels the antithesis and retains in a processed form the entire content of previous development. This explains the phenomenology wherein lower order stands in relation to the higher order. This brief understanding is useful to know what happens to the commodities in their dialectical development in capitalism. Lafargue referred to 'the actual dialectics of commodities' in the abovementioned essay. The commodity in capitalism will move in anti-thesis and the supreme category in the synthesis will evolve. We will have realised a supreme commodity in the actual dialectics of commodity. The economy abundant with supreme commodity will be the sublation of a capitalist society into new society communism.
Hence the production of commodity is the centre of study in the dialectics. The laws governing the production help us to cognise the process of commodity supply in the capitalist economy. The law of value is the governing force in this respect. The principle of competition in the movements of commodity discovers the processes of the metamorphosis. The metaphysics of the movements of commodity in history could be delineated in the knowledge of the science of political economy.
The Capitalist Economy
The historiography of the political economy during the period of capitalism is fully known to the students of economics. The machines are used in commodity production. The commodities produced by handicrafts in domestic economy are competed out in this process, because machine-produced commodities are cheaper. Thus there exists the full scale appearances of machines and their commodity production.
This status of the manufacturing industries and modern agriculture is called the capitalist mode of production. This mode of production is in self-motion. The accumulation provides the motion. The first metamorphosis is the replacement of labourers by machines. This is to be cognised as a process in dialectics. The labourers produce surplus values for capitalists, who are free to use it. The competition forces the capitalists to use accumulation for modernisation in the competitive struggle of the commodity market.
This explains the fact that the workers produce conditions for their own unemployment. The employed workers precurse their own unemployment in capitalism. This is a short run paradigm. The long run paradigm is moving against the capitalists. The modern machines create accumulation of stocks which connote crisis of over-production. Accumulation of capital in the hands of capitalists precurses accumulation of unsold stocks of commodities. This long run paradigm is the process of dissolution of capitalist mode of production.
We have comprehended the process of appearance, ascend and disappearance in commodity production. The process is dialectical because the objective economic forces explain the emergence of anti-thesis and its synthesis. The accumulation of surplus value in the hands of capitalists ought to be invested in modern machines. The anti-thesis between more funds and more labourers is sublated in more machines and less labour in production. This promotes maximisation of investments for modernisation in commodity production. The ascend of commodity in the economy is manifested in the expansion in all-sided modernisation and plentiful supplies of commodities. Branches of production are widened and each branch of production is deepened. The supply exceeds demand in the economy. This creates anti-thesis. The same is solved by disappearance of capitalist production in the economy. The economy with supply exceeding demand results in the downward movement of rates of profit. The motivation to use capital is profit. The motive force to produce commodities is the self-expansion of capital in capitalism. This motive force loses its momentum. Hence the anti-thesis, the crisis in commodity production. The economy is in its own contractions. The modernised economy can not go forward. This is the crisis of over-production. We know it as depression in the economy.
The first anti-thesis was solved by throwing labourers in unemployment. They, however, do some work to earn a living. This is the metamorphosis itself. It is manifested in self-employment. Unemployment becomes self-employment. They produce commodities. A new category of commodity is born in the economy. The capitalist circuit of commodity is (M-C-M1). It cannot be the circuit of the new commodities. It moves in (C-M-C) circuit. Commodities flowing into the economy have similar appearance but their reality is different. Similar commodities but dissimilar origin, dissimilar motivation and dissimilar economic variables. The cognisance of the similar and the dissimilar in the commodity connotes knowledge of the dialectically moving capitalism. The economic cell i.e. commodity, is undergoing the evolution. The process needs to be cognised. Economic cells of society after capitalism are emerging in the dialectics of commodity production.
Economic Calculations Of Self Employed Labour Activities
If the capitalist production coexists with the production of self employed peoples' production, the commodities on the market and the law of value would engender their economic variables. We can measure them and analyse the movements in the political economy. For the sake of comparison, the following assumptions are made :-
1. The commodities are generic in nature, and there is free competition among the commodity producers.
2. There is a single market price for commodity under study.
These assumptions are generally true in agricultural production. Some units are produced by hired labour while the other units are operated by family labour.
The market price of the commodity is governed by the law of value in capitalism. Therefore the ruling market price comprises of the elements of capitalist price. The constant capital, variable capital and profit in the Marxian lexicon are its elements.
The capitalist units continue production because the elements of (C+V+S) are recovered on the market prices. Let us presume them as (60+40+20) respectively. In these economic variables, the self-employed families' commodities are also priced at 120. The expenses on materials i.e. synonym of constant capital assuming same, the self-employed family would receive the income (120 minus 60) of the amount of 60 from their production activities. This is obvious when we see foodgrains sold at same market price irrespective of the fact that foodgrains are produced by wageless family of the farmer or farms employing hired labour.
If the market price goes up the capitalist units gain more profit margin. The self-employed labour units also get more income.
If the market price goes down, say to 100, the capitalist units are closed. However. the self-employed labour units can continue because they earn 40 as income.
Falling price level, therefore, needs closer study. The self-employed people and their economic activities are proved invincible, whether the market price rises above or falls down. The economic crisis explained by Marxian theory is exclusively the crisis of capitalist production. The production for profit is enclosed when prices fall on the market.
It is an error to cognise the abolition of self-employed labour units in the history of competitive forces of competition. The price level may rise or fall, the self employed labour units once precursed in the capitalist economy become invincible. There is no economic analysis nor a theory that can substantiate the abolition of self-employed family units of commodity production. The error is likely in the identification of small size production. The smallness of the size is an economic concept of capitalist production. The small size capitalist production is not in one-to-one correspondence with family's self-employed unit of production.
Small size production has the same value theorem comprised in (C+V+S) as economic variables. It could be abolished in competitive capitalism by large sized units. The essay delineates the special economic units of production that are formed by the industrial reserve army. They are self-employed labour units of commodity production.
Marxian economic theory explains the capitalist commodity production exclusively. It discloses the industrial reserve army people. It makes casual reference to their living in capitalism. It, however, left out the interactions of these people as and when they become self-employed labour units. If their commodities on the market are comprehended along with the capitalist commodities, the newness of the phenomenon in political economy of capitalism is disclosed.
This newness of the phenomenon is directly relevant to the economic crisis which has been repeatedly asserted by the scholars of Marxism. The following statements could be made in this respect.
1. Trade cycle and economic crisis is an inalienable aspect of capitalist economy.
2. The unemployed people are precursed in trade cycles.
3. They become self-employed labour units to live in capitalism.
4. These self-employed labour units should not be cognised as small size production units.
5. In the market price of the capitalist economy, the self employed labour units are invincible, both when the price level rises and falls.
6. When the over-production overtakes capitalist production, the capitalist system becomes immobile.
7. During the same period, the self employed labour units remain in production and continue to produce the commodities.
The disappearance of capitalist commodity production and the appearance of self-employed peoples' production is a dialectical development of political economy. It is a sublation in the dialectics of political economy, engendered in the law of value.
This precipitation is quantitatively ensuing in the trade cycle generally. However, it takes a qualitative change in the period of depression, i.e. falling prices and the over-production as a crisis of capitalism. The premise of free trade system governed by the principle of competition brings about this metamorphosis.
The bourgoise economists have also analysed the phenomenon of the wageless family's production. The micro-analytical frame consisting of the variable and fixed cost, average and marginal cost curves and their movements in respect of the market price have been analysed. The student of agricultural economics study the cost of production of farm produce by assuming the opportunity cost of farmers family labour as zero.
Factor Prices of Resources
Prof. Earl O. Heady has published his studies in his book "Economics of Agricultural Production and Resource Use" (Prentice Hall Ltd.) He has anlysed factor prices of resources with reference to the decision making to increase or decrease production when market price rises or falls. This exercise is done to disclose the difference between two units of firms. viz. the firm which has money resources to increase output and the firm that has limitation on money resources.
The firm that has limitation is, according to the author, a small firm, and he has explained it as a synonym of family farm. In the case of the family farm, the labour supply does not cost resource expenditure.
The conclusions of his analysis are revealing. During the depression, the family farm does not decide to stop production. The proof of the conclusion with the help of variable cost, marginal cost and average cost curves are obvious in the diagrams. They are fully described also. The analytical frame of Professor Heady is important because in the competitive economy, all producers, i.e. those who are paying wage-labour and those who are not paying wages are shown in their movements. This is the study of all commodities produced by productive as well as unproductive labour i.e. (M-C-M1) and (C-M-C) circuits of Marxian scheme by the single law of value. Therefore, its conclusions are useful to overcome the limitation of Marxian economic theory which analyse the movements of law of value in (M-C-M1) circuit exclusively.
The Marxian economic theory could be improved as regards its economic variables, with the economic variables of the production farm without wage labour. The stubborn existence is explained because of the fact that labour does not cost as a resource. Professor Heady's analysis of family farm explains rest of the features of the phenomenon.
Family Economy
Family farms can never be competed out by any size of capitalist farms according to the reading of the figure 23 of Chapter 11 of the book by Prof. Heady. Similarly, in case of two identical sizes of farms one commercial farm and the other family farm, during falling price level the family farm does not stop production. It is the commercial farm which stops to produce. This is evident from figures 21 and 22 of the same chapter.
The family economy without wage labour is an economic fact of the capitalist economy moving through trade cycle. Its economic variables as explained by Prof Heady substantiates its superiority in production especially during depression. Marxian economic theory has exclusiveness in explaining wage-labour, i.e. productive labour in capitalist production which is expressed in all the variables of (M-C-M1) system. The interactions of the (C-M-C) system of production by the 'unproductive labour' of reserve army, complete the economic theory consistent with all the principle of Marxian economic theory. The cognition of fullness of all production removes one-sidedness and confirms all-sidedness of the theory. The deductions from the theory then disclose the elements that need to be cognised as comprising the scientificness of the new system. Scientific socialism connotes the cognition of the movement of the political economy and identifies its metamorphosis from capitalism to socialism.
The discussion need to be related to the people who are in reserve army. Further, the concept of unproductive labour connotes the economic activities analysed earlier. The borderline of productive labour as a concept is measurable by the accumulation of surplus value. i.e. self-expansion of the capital. The Soviet scholar S. N. Naded has fully disclosed the measurement of the people in petty bourgeoisie production. The reserve army people, according to S. N. Naded become petty bourgeoisie producers.
Once we overcome the limitations of measuring the self employed people in their economic activities exclusively by the criterion of engaging a casual wage-labourer or regular hired labourer we realise a significant percentage of people in the production of commodities for the consumption from the income.
The two purposes of production co-exist in capitalism, viz. production for profit and production for living. Their circuits are (M-C-M1) and (C-M-C) respectively.
Marxian economic theory explained the movements of value in (M-C-M1) circuit of production. We have now the explanation for the movements of values in (C-M-C) circuit of production. All commodities as regards their economic variables are known to us and we also explain their interactions. The conclusion is important. The period of depression proves that
(M-C-M1) circuit of production is destroyed by the movement of the law of value. On the contrary, (C-M-C) circuit of production is of eternal nature, it exists during the period of boom and rising prices. It specially grows during the period of depression and falling prices.
The economic theory disclose the revolutionary aspect of the political economy. Capitalist production is transient and will be superseded by the production by people who belonged to the industrial reserve army. The economic theory also explains the revolutionary moment. The depression with falling prices is a revolutionary moment when the capitalist economy is superseded.

In Socialism
Moscow news dated August 10, 1986, Number 32, carries a very interesting despatch from the standpoint of theory of the organisation. We all know that the Soviet Union had organised its planned activities on large scale, both in agriculture and industry. In the recent period, specially after the 27th Congress on February 25, 1986 of the CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union, has heralded the era of economic reforms in the planning of the economy. The above quoted despatch informs us of the small family farms in Soviet Union, which are being encouraged. Edward Maksimovsky informs the readers on page 12 in the following words, "Economists believed that the family's farm income might be twice to thrice as large as that of the other farm workers. Eventually, that proved to be the case." In the normal economy without depression, this empirical evidence is of great relevance in economic theory. The essay is full of praise of the superiority of family farms in living culture and the income received.
Whether one lives in the capitalist economy or in the socialist economy, small farms have proved their superiority. Prof. Heady has proved it in capitalist economy and the Soviet economists have also proved the same in their socialist economy. And I have proved that the capitalist economy during the phase of depression precipitates small units which are in production without exploitation. History of human society in the philosophy of cognising that palaeontology moves towards small units in the economy. We know that the classical economists, the Marxian economists and also the neoclassical economists do not differentiate between agriculture and industry in their studies of resource allocation and formation of the equilibrium in the economy. What is true of farming could also be true of industry. More analytical studies should explore this proposition. This does not negate the role of large organisations for specific lines of production. Marshallian externalities of large scale organisations under social control and the small scale units under the family's enterprises may coalesce towards optimisation of the economic results in the economy. This line could be studied.
Conclusion
Lafargue's dialectics of commodity is essentially the dialectics of existence of the people who produce the commodities. Those who produced surplus values for capitalists, struggle outside the circuit of the capitalist mode of production. They form their own circuit of commodity for their living. The capitalists in their own circuit of profit-making-commodity production are struggling for maximising their surplus values. In their own struggle they move in their own dissolution because there are struggles of commodities in the market where supply exceeds demand. The workers inside the (M-C-M1) circuit of commodities are struggling to retain themselves in employment during the period of boom as well as the depression. The struggle of the commodities is the struggle for existence of human beings both capitalists and the workers. Darwin, therefore, stands vindicated in the political economy, though he made mistakes in the other issue of the science proper.
Palaeontology and the history of human beings in nature is synonymous in this sense. Palaeontology explains the organic world. Marxism explains the world of societies; their formations one after the other. In this essay the formation of the new economy is indicated. There is a simultaneous change and development at each stage. This is dialectics of Hegel. The supreme category is evolved in the dissolution of capitalism. The universal growth of the supreme category of commodity is the self employment activity. It is free from exploitation and also alienation. Once their number is increased and the dissolution of the capitalist commodity is completed, the recognisation will emerge in the discovery of the necessary scientific form of commodity production. Scientific socialism has to have its scientific form of organisation of commodity, its production, its circuit, and its utility to human beings. This part of the study shall be undertaken in a separate essay.