User:OMAR YLIF/Natalie Moszkowska

Natalie Moszkowska
Born	(1886-05-01)May 1, 1886 Varsovie
Died	November 26, 1968(1968-11-26) (aged 82) Zurich

Natalie Moszkowska (1886-1968) was born on the 1st May 1886 in Warsaw as the daughter of Alexander Moszkowski and Eveline Juhwihler. She became a socialist economist who provided significant contributions in the Marxian theory of value and of crisis, in the concept of monopoly capital and also in the economic interpretation of military expenditures.

Biography

She was a member of the polish Social-democratic Party. Around the year 1900, following to the persecutions on behalf of the tsarist government, she emigrated from the Russian Empire to Switzerland, where she started her studies in the University of Zurich. In July 1914, Natalie Moszkowska obtained the title of doctor “oeconomiae publicae” supervised by Heinrich Sieveking. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the bank savings of the workers in the coal and steel industries in Poland. As explained in her thesis, her work was based on Russian documents, to which she had access to earlier in her life whilst her stay in the Kingdom of Poland in 1911. At the end of 1918, just after the October revolution (1917) and during the ongoing November revolution in Germany, the Swiss authorities suspected Natalie Moszkowska to be a supporter of the Bolshevism. When Moszkowska and Leiba Chaim Kaplan remained longer than planned in the Alpenhotel in Weesen-Amden, Switzerland, the Cantonal police of Saint Gall was charged to watch this suspicious "Russians pair" which received registered mail on a regular basis. 

Later in her life, in the year 1923, Moszkowska established in Zurich to work as tutor and wrote for the union and socialist press. She published three books in addition to many articles. Her active part in debates on economic questions within the Swiss socialist Party, where she was member are to mention. She remained unmarried and lived in Zurich, where she maintained contacts with the international scientific community (as for example with Maurice Dobb, Adolf Lowe or Edgar Salin). She died on the 26th November 1968.

Œuvres principales

Das Marxsche System (1929)

Cover page of Moszkowska's book (1929). Das Marxsche System. Ein Beitrag zu dessen Ausbau

The first book of written by Moszkowska just after her thesis is named Das Marxsche System (engl: the Marxist system) and was published in 1929 by the Berliner editor Robert Engelmann. The first part of the book defences the Labour theory of value from a point of view which is very close to Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz. Moszkowska used an unusual high number of digital examples of the transformation of the values into price of production

In the second part of the book further apparent similarities with Bortkiewicz can be found. Moszkowska criticizes Marx’s treatment of the decline in the rate of the profit, explained in the volume III of his book “Capital”. Moszkowska supports the introduction of the capitalists new machine only if the cost of production is at least as much paid work as it costs to produce. By doing this, all new advanced technologies increase the work’s productivity; their effect on the profit’s rate depends on the increase in productivity via the increased average production by a single worker. Thereby, she described with a defective technical analysis what will later be known as the famous Okishio's theorem: Sustainable innovations that reduce the rate of profit are directly linked to a rise of real wages. She concludes that the falling tendency of the rate of profit should not be interpreted like a historical prediction, but rather as a functional relation between rates of appreciation and rates of profit. In other words, the falling tendency of the rate of profit could be explaine as well by "the law of tendency of the rate of profit to fall "as well as "the law of the upward trend in the rate of exploitation", but in the fact it is the second law, which prevailed.

In the third part of her book, Moszkowska applies these conclusions to the theory of the crisis but she rejected the model of the rate of profit contained in volume III of the Capital. Further, the idea according to which the disproportionalities between the various branches of the production would be the subjacent cause of the economic cycle is opposed by her. If there is a fundamental disproportion in the capitalist economy, it must be due to the distribution. An excessive share of the profits leads to the overaccumulation of the capital and causes crises of underconsumption, whilst real wages increase quickly together with decreased unemployment. The result is a lowering of profitability which will put an end to the prosperity. For Moszkowska, it is the underconsumption wich is the strongest explanation.

Zur Kritik moderner Krisentheorien (1935)

Cover page of Natalie Moszkowska's book (1935). Zur Kritik Moderner Krisentheorien.

In her second work, “Zur Kritik moderner Krisentheorien” (engl: criticism of modern crisis theories), published in 1935, Natalie Moszkowska criticizes the existing theories of the crisis described by German and Austrian socialist authors, such as Adolph Lowe, Emil Lederer, Henryk Grossmann, Otto Bauer and Gustav Landauer.

In her criticisms, Moszkowska supports the necessity of wages to follow the growth of the work productivity. Therefore, the share of the wages remains constant to maintain the macro-economic balance. She also reconsiders technical progress, a subject already developed in her precedent book, to affirm with conviction that technical progress is synonymous of rise of the rate of profit. This book also includes the period of depression, at topic present in everyone’s mind at the time of the release of the book. The appreciation should increase evermore due to the disparity of adjustment of the prices. The monetary wages and the prices of the raw materials crumble faster than the prices of the manufactured goods

In this second book, Natalie Moszkowska reinfores the theory of underconsumption to explain the decline of capitalism:

“If the gap between the production and consumption opens beyond a certain point and if the defect of consumption reaches a certain width, relative impoverishment becomes absolute. Production will decrease and workers find themselves on the pavement. If classical capitalism was to be characterized by a relative impoverishment, modern capitalism would thus be equivalent to an absolute impoverishment. And this absolute pauperisation is large decline of capitalism, unsustainable in the long term.” .

The Great depression of 1930 is the proof for Natalie Moszkowska theory mentioned above. 

This second book marks a turning in its manner of thinking and any door to think that it anticipates the advent close to a permanent crisis of capitalism, because of the variation growing between consumption and production.

Zur Dynamik des Spätkapitalismus (1943)

Cover page of Natalie Moszkowska's book (1943). Zur Dynamik des Spätkapitalismus.

In her third book ”Zur Dynamik of Spätkapitalismus” (engl: the dynamics of late capitalism), Natalie Moszkowska continues her criticism of the decreasing trend of the rate of profit by reconsidering two approaches of the theory of the crises, the “under-accumulation” and “over-accumulation”. Under-accumulation is compatible with the modern theory of the cycles and the analysis of volume III of the Capital of Marx, like “natural” or “eternal” law of capitalism. However, according to Moszkowska, the Marxist political economy should concentrate on “social” and “historical” laws the over-accumulation (a synonym for underconsumption).

Moszkowska continues by a careful analysis of problems caused by incidental expense (or wasting), which is only one manner of filling the gap between the production of the company and its consumption. The misuse of the resources is in particular experienced in controls of the importation or dumping of exports, and especially of the expenditure of armament as well as the economic costs and social enormous of the war. She concludes from it that middle-class liberalism and the reformism of the social-democracy cannot remain valid any longer, and therefore alternative forms of socialism must be fascism, the imperialism, and war.

Liste of publications

Publications

• Moszkowska, N. (1917). Arbeiterkassen an den privaten Berg- und Hüttenwerken im Königreich Polen: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen der Arbeitgeber. Stuttgart: Dietz Nachf. (Publication de sa thèse de doctorat de 1914).

• Moszkowska, N. (1929). Das Marxsche System: ein Beitrag zu dessen Ausbau. Berlin: Engelmann, H. R.

• Moszkowska, N. (1935). Zur Kritik moderner Krisentheorien. Prag: Neuen Weltbühne.

• Moszkowska, N. (1943). Zur Dynamik des Spätkapitalismus. Zürich: Der Aufbruch.

Papers selection

• Moszkowska, N. (1933). Kapitalnot oder Absatznot?. Rote Revue: sozialistische Monatsschrift, 31: 308-312.
• Moszkowska, N. (1938). Zum Problem der Wert- und Preisrechnung - eine Erwiderung [betr. Emil J. Walter]
• Moszkowska, N., Brügel, J.W. (1951). Kapitalismus nach den Weltkriegen. Rote Revue: sozialistische Monatsschrift, 30: 461-466.
• Thürig, W., Moszkowska, N. (1952). Der alte und der neue Faschismus. Rote Revue: sozialistische Monatsschrift, 31: 14-20.
• Brügel, J.W., Moszkowska, N. (1952). Wer hat den Kapitalismus gerettet? Rote Revue: sozialistische Monatsschrift, 12: 76-83, 288.
• Moszkowska, N. (1952). Das kapitalistische Endstadium. Rote Revue: sozialistische Monatsschrift, 31: 145-154.
• Miville, C., Moszkowska, N., V.G. (1952). Wer treibt zum Krieg? Rote Revue: sozialistische Monatsschrift, 31: 245-250.
• Moszkowska, N. (1952). Oekonomische und politische Auswirkungen der Rüstungen. Arbeit und Wirtschaft, Vienna, 6.Jg./Nr. 3
• Moszkowska, N., Zajfert, T., Bührer, J. (1954). Kleinhaltung des Massenkonsums und wirtschaftliche Entwicklung. Rote Revue: sozialistische Monatsschrift, 33: 116-123, 137-140, 165-168.
• Moszkowska, N. (1955). Hemmnisse der demokratischen Entwicklung. Der öffentliche VPOD-Dienst, 48.
• Moszkowska, N. (1955). Kreditinflation und Teuerung. Rote Revue, 34: 30-39.
• Moszkowska, N. (1958). Kapitalistische Wirtschaftswunder, Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte, 9(4): 224-228.
• Moszkowska, N. (1959). Das Krisenproblem bei Marx und Keynes. Schmollers Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft, 79(6): 665-701.
• Moszkowska, N. (1960). Erwartung und Wirklichkeit, Periodikum für Wissenschaftlichen Sozialismus, 16: 5-16.
• Moszkowska, N. (1963). Wandlung der Methode und des Erkenntnisobjektes der Nationalökonomie. Schmollers Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft, 83(3): 269-293.
• Moszkowska, N. (1965). Methodologischer Subjektivismus in der Nationalökonomie. Schmollers Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft, 85: 513-524.

Archives

Moszkowska continues by a careful analysis of problems caused by incidental expense (or wasting), which is only one manner of filling the gap between the production of the company and its consumption. The misuse of the resources is in particular experienced in controls of the importation or dumping of exports, and especially of the expenditure of armament as well as the economic costs and social enormous of the war. She concludes from it that middle-class liberalism and the reformism of the social-democracy cannot remain valid any longer, and therefore alternative forms of socialisms fmust be fascism, the imperialism, and war.

Bibliography

• Howard, Michael. C and John E. King (2000). Natalie Moszkowska. In Robert W. Dimand, Mary Ann Dimand and Evelyn L. Forget (eds), A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 313-317.
• Schoer, Karl (1976). Natalie Moszkowska and the Falling Rate of Profit. New Left Review, 95(1): 92-96.
• Hagemann Harald, Heinz D. Kurz and G. Magoulas (1975). Zum Verhältnis der Marxschen Werttheorie zu den Wert- und Preistheorien der Klassiker: Bemerkungen zu W. Beckers Aufsatz „Dialektik als Methode in der ökonomischen Werttheorie von Marx. Jahrbücher für Nationaloekonomie und Statistik, 189(6): 531-543.
• Arghiri, Emmanuel (1970). La question de l'échange inégal, L'Homme et la société, 18(1): 35-59.
• Groll, S. and Z. B. Orzech (1989). From Marx to the Okishio Theorem: a Genealogy, History of Political Economy, 21(2): 253-272.
• Sweezy, Paul M. (1942). The Theory of Capitalist Development. New York: Oxford University Press.

External links

[[:Category:Marxism]] [[:Category:20th-century economists]] [[:Category:Polish economists]] [[:Category:Swiss economists]]