THE "NEW ORDER"
303
social life. Short of the destruction of the whole capitalist system,
the latter situation can be temporarily remedied only by
remedying
the situation which prevents continued capital formation.
The
capitalist crisis, by re-establishing a lost basis for the continuation
of profit production, temporarily also re-proportioned the social
labor so that society could maintain some sort of stability. The
only law that asserted itself throughout the capitalist development
was the
law of value
in
the Marxian sense,
that is, the
law of
~rises
and
collapse.
Naturally, the bourgeoisie could not admit that the
only "order" to be found in their system was the disorder of the
crisis. Thus they looked everywhere to discover the forces and
reasons that disturbed the smooth working of the "market laws"–
which explains the ridiculous but gigantic literature on economics.
If
in capitalist society "the determination of the magnitude
of value by labor-time is a secret, hidden under the apparent fluc–
tuations in the relative values of commodities,"'
5
the secret deepens
with the development of capitalism. Though "logically" the
opposite should occur, because the exchange contracts, because
the number of independent producers relative to the total capital
decreases, because control displaces anarchy in production and
distribution, actually the demands of the law of value are violated
in increasing measure. Because the number of anonymous, atom–
istic competitors declines and cost, sales prices, and margins are
increasingly "regulated," the
"realization of a rational economy relies on the will, insight,
and abilities of the few persons who are in dictatorial com–
mand of the whole of society. Thus a decisive irrational,
personal, and subjective element comes in."'
8
The reason for this increasing "irrationality" should not be looked
for, however, in the abilities or lack of abilities of those who rule
society dictatorially
but in the dictatorial rule itself.
Regulation is possible only in "production by freely-asso–
ciated men, and is consciously exercised by them in accordance
with a settled plan.mo But then it would be senseless to continue to
speak of a "law of value." "Value is a strictly historical category;
neither before nor after capitalism does there exist value produc-
"Capital.
Vol. I;
p.
74.
"H. von Beckerath.
The Philosophical Review.
Nov. 1937;
p.
595.
•capital.
Vol. I;
p.
92.
