The Implication for Socialism of Marx's Theory of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall

1994 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 292-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elias L. Khalil
Keyword(s):  
Karl Marx ◽  
Capitalist Production ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
Ideal Form ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Law ◽  
Rate Of Profit ◽  
Mode Of Production

It is clear from the enormous literature on the subject that Karl Marx believed that his law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is applicable only to the capitalist mode of production. Is there, however, really anything in the law which confines it specifically to capitalist production? This is an important question which is not asked in an explicit manner in the literature on Marx's economics. His most important law or tendency about the internal contradictions of capitalist production might turn out to be a characteristic of production per se—including socialist production in its ideal form.

The Rate of Profit and Crises in a Socialist Economy

1995 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore P. Lianos
Keyword(s):  
Socialist Economy ◽  
Social Form ◽  
Capitalist Economy ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
Organic Composition ◽  
The Law ◽  
Rate Of Profit ◽  
Mode Of Production ◽  
Composition Of Capital

In a recent paper (1994) in this journal, Elias L. Khalil makes two claims. First, he contends, the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is not unique to the capitalist mode of production but it is equally valid in a socialist economy. Second, a decline in the rate of profit in a socialist economy would engender crises as would be the case in a capitalist economy. Even more, he argues that crises would be necessary in any social form if there is a secular tendency of the organic composition of capital to rise.

Imagination as Crisis: Spinoza on the Naturalisation and Denaturalisation of Capitalist Relations

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Anna Piekarska ◽  
Jakub Krzeski
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Material Force ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
The Subject ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Established Order ◽  
Mode Of Production

Abstract Many current Marxist debates point to a crisis of imagination as a challenge to emancipatory thoughts and actions. The naturalisation of the capitalist mode of production within the production of subjectivity is among the chief reasons behind this state of affairs. This article contributes to the debate by focusing on the notion of imagination, marked by a deep ambivalence capable of both naturalising and denaturalising social relations constitutive of the established order. Such an understanding of imagination is constructed from within the framework of historical materialism, and it draws on Spinoza and Marx, taking advantage of the similarities between the two with respect to the constitution of the subject. From this stems an investigation into the imagination as a material force that partakes both in subjection and liberation. This is further demonstrated in regard to juridical forms of subjectivation and the possibility of subverting these forms through imagination.

Marx's Ecological Notebooks

2016 ◽  
Vol 67 (9) ◽  
pp. 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kohei Saito
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Index Volume ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
Monthly Review ◽  
First Time ◽  
Mode Of Production

Karl Marx has long been criticized for his so-called ecological "Prometheanism"&mdash;an extreme commitment to industrialism, irrespective of natural limits. This view, supported even by a number of Marxists, such as Ted Benton and Michael L&ouml;wy, has become increasingly hard to accept after a series of careful and stimulating analyses of the ecological dimensions of Marx's thought, elaborated in <em>Monthly Review</em> and elsewhere. The Prometheanism debate is not a mere philological issue, but a highly practical one, as capitalism faces environmental crises on a global scale, without any concrete solutions. Any such solutions will likely come from the various ecological movements emerging worldwide, some of which explicitly question the capitalist mode of production. Now more than ever, therefore, the rediscovery of a Marxian ecology is of great importance to the development of new forms of left strategy and struggle against global capitalism.&hellip; Yet there is hardly unambiguous agreement among leftists about the extent to which Marx's critique can provide a theoretical basis for these new ecological struggles.&hellip; This article&hellip; [takes] a different approach&hellip; [investigating] Marx's natural-scientific notebooks, especially those of 1868, which will be published for the first time in volume four, section eighteen of the new <em>Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe</em>(MEGA).<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-9" title="Vol. 67, No. 9: February 2016" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>

History versus Theory: A Commentary on Marx’s Method in Capital

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
Laws Of Motion ◽  
The Law ◽  
Historical Writings ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Total Theory ◽  
Mode Of Production

Abstract The gap between Marx’s theoretical writings on political economy (for example, the three volumes of Capital) and his historical writings (such as The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and The Civil War in France) arises out of certain limitations that Marx placed upon his political-economic enquiries. These limitations are outlined in the Grundrisse where Marx distinguishes between the universality of the metabolic relation to nature, the generality of the laws of motion of capital, the particularities of distribution and exchange, and the singularities of consumption. What an analysis of the content of Capital shows is that Marx largely confined his efforts to identifying the law-like character of production to the exclusion of all else. While this allowed him to identify certain laws of motion of capital within any form of the capitalist mode of production, it did not and could not constitute a total theory of a capitalist mode of production. A better understanding of what it is that Marx can do for us through his identification of the general laws of motion leads to a far better appreciation of what it is that we have to do for ourselves in order to make Marx’s theoretical findings applicable to particular conjunctural conditions, such as those that have arisen throughout the economic crisis that began in 2007.

The Missing link: the Views of the Second International School of Thought on Development, Underdevelopment and Dependency

Itinerario ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-70
Author(s):  
Marc Michielsen
Keyword(s):  
International School ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Foreign Competition ◽  
Missing Link ◽  
Capitalist Production ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Mode Of Production ◽  
Second International

In the long run, no country can avoid capitalism. No matter how bad the condition of the lower classes in a country in which they are defenselessly subjugated to the capitalist mode of production, they would still be worse off in a country that is economically under the spell of capitalist exploitation, whereas the ruling system does not give capitalist production the opportunity to arise; in a country where the population is proletarianized by the usurer, the merchant and by foreign competition, and where this proletariat cannot be absorbed by nascent big industries and cannot be gradually prepared for resistance against capitalism. The example of such a country is nowadays Turkey, and the Philippines will arrive at the same situation if the Spanish regime continues for a long time.

scholarly journals Economic role of the state in new (post-capitalist) mode of production

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 225-232
Author(s):  
Ana Tot
Keyword(s):  
Developed Countries ◽  
The State ◽  
Direct Link ◽  
Economic Role ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Mode Of Production

On the basis of the researches on the new (post-capitalist) way of production, in developed countries, the author points to, very concisely, the appearance of relations and legality of the new way of production. Considering this, the author expresses her attitudes on the roles of the state in the new way of production. As this article is in a direct link with the previous ones (cited in the literature), getting familiar with their contents is recommendable in order to understand the subject better.

Malebolge: The Capitalist Mode of Production as Fraud

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Clare Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Karl Marx ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Surplus Labor ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
Labor Power ◽  
Mode Of Production

This chapter examines parts four through seven of Capital, where Karl Marx argues that capitalism is guilty of fraud. Rewriting Dante's long passage through the Malebolge (the ringed field where the sins of fraud are punished), Marx claims that the capitalist mode of production is a fraud, promising good but delivering evil. He insists that the accumulation of wealth as capital requires and creates a dependent population in excess of the demand for labor power. In order to appreciate Marx's distinctive approach to these matters, the chapter considers Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's writings, drawing special attention to the collective forces of production and the ontological status of association. It also discusses the three monsters of fraud mentioned by Marx in Capital, in particular the mechanism by which the surplus labor of the proletariat relates to the wages of labor.

scholarly journals The discovery of surplus value: Karl Marx and Senior’s ‘last hour’

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-54
Author(s):  
Kenneth Smith
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
The Other ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
University Professor ◽  
Working Day ◽  
Capitalist Enterprise ◽  
Mode Of Production

This essay claims to discover the point at which Marx worked out his theory of surplus value sometime during the 10-year period between 1857 and the publication of Capital Vol. I in 1867. This, it is claimed, was due to his reading of a well-known pamphlet by an English Oxford University professor of political economy, Nassau W. Senior. Senior had claimed that capitalist manufacturers made all of their profit during the last hour of the then normal 12-hour working day. Marx knew that this was incorrect since, if Senior was right, the capitalists might just as well employ their workers for this 1 hour alone and not bother with the other 11 hours of the working day. The workers must then have been doing something else which was of value to the capitalists over and above merely producing their profit. This something else Marx realised was nothing less than the renewal of the worn out fabric of the capitalist enterprise and hence, along with this, the recreation year after year of the capitalists claims to be the legitimate owners of the enterprise. This essay then also claims to have identified two letters by Marx written just 11 months apart which might help to further date the discovery of surplus value, in the first of which, written in 1862, Marx gives Senior’s incorrect view of surplus value as profit and in the second of which, written in 1863, he gives his mature view of surplus value as profit plus the recreation of the capitalist mode of production itself. Having made this theoretical breakthrough by 1863, Marx finally stopped making notebooks and threw himself into the writing of Capital Vol. I in 1864, the year in which by chance Nassau Senior died.

Power: a Marxist view

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 1353-1375
Author(s):  
Giulio Palermo
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Capitalist Production ◽  
Mainstream Economics ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
Simple Idea ◽  
The Many ◽  
Social Coercion ◽  
Mode Of Production

Abstract Lukes’ Power: A Radical View is a milestone in the debate on power. First, it criticises the narrow conceptions of political sociology, which reduces power to merely interpersonal relations. Second, it suggests an enlarged ontology of power capable of dealing with social coercion and collective action. Lukes, however, seeks the causes of power in politics and society by abstracting from the economic sphere. This detaches power from exploitation and confuses the essential with the only contingent forms of power of capitalism. The economics debate is predicated on this error because mainstream economics rules out the exploitative nature of capitalist production and introduces power later only as a residual category, which might develop only out of competition. The result is a mystified conception in which social coercion is no longer visible and competition appears as power-free. My ‘Marxist view’ on power is founded on a simple idea: exploitation in the economy imposes particular forms of power and coercion in society. Therefore, in the same way as the capitalist mode of production is essentially based on exploitation so it is also based on power and coercion. The economy is not merely one of the many possible sources of power, but the sphere in which the essential forms of capitalist power are generated. Competition is not the antithesis of power but the vehicle through which exploitation imposes the essential power relations of capitalism.

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