|
Crisis theory, concerning the tendency for the rate of profit to fall in a capitalist system, is now generally associated with Marxian economics. Earlier analysis was provided by Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi who provided the first suggestions of its systemic roots.〔https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/crisis-intro.htm〕〔Isaac Illyich Rubin () ‘Sismondi as a Critic of Capitalism’ Chapter 37 in A History of Economic Thought, InkLinks, London〕 John Stuart Mill in his ‘Of the Tendency of Profits to a Minimum’ which forms Chapter IV of Book IV of his Principles of Political Economy and Chapter V ‘Consequences of the Tendency of Profits to a Minimum’ provides a conspectus of the then accepted understanding of a number of the key elements post-Ricardo but without the theoretical working out that Marx wrote & Engels published subsequently in Capital Volume III. There are several elements in Marx’s presentation which attest to his familiarity with Mill’s formulations notably Mill’s treatment of what Marx would subsequently call counteracting tendencies: destruction of capital (commercial revulsions §5, improvements in production §6, importation of cheap necessaries and instruments §7,and emigration of capital §8).〔John Stuart Mill () Principles of Political Economy with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy, University of Toronto Press〕 Crisis theory was only partially understood among leading Marxists at the beginning of the twentieth-century. A relatively small group including Lenin, and Rosa Luxemburg attempted, not always successfully, theoretically to defend the revolutionary implications of the theory, while others like Eduard Bernstein argued against its continued applicability.〔Kuhn, Rick (''Economic Crisis and Socialist Revolution: Henryk Grossman’s Law of accumulation, Its First Critics and His Responses'' )〕 It was Henryk Grossman〔https://www.marxists.org/archive/grossman/1922/crises/index.htm〕 who most successfully rescued Marx’s theoretical presentation ... ‘he was the first Marxist to systematically explore the tendency for the organic composition of capital to rise and hence for the rate of profit to fall as a fundamental feature of Marx’s explanation of economic crises in Capital.’〔Rick Kuhn () ‘Economic Crisis and Socialist Revolution: Henryk Grossman’s Law of accumulation, Its First Critics and His Responses’, originally published in Paul Zarembka and Susanne Soederberg (eds) Neoliberalism in Crisis, Accumulation, and Rosa Luxemburg’s Legacy Elsevier Jai, Amsterdam Research in Political Economy, 21, 2004 pp. 181–221. ISSN: 01617230 (series). ISBN 0762310987.〕 After the 1930s Joseph Schumpeter's concept of creative destruction attempted to reformulate Marx's analysis in less revolutionary light.〔Joseph A. Schumpeter ()Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy, Routledge, London〕 In this context "crisis" refers to an especially sharp bust cycle of the regular boom and bust pattern of what Marxists term "chaotic" capitalist development, which, if no countervailing action is taken, develops into a recession or depression. In terms of historical materialism theory, such crises will repeat until objective and subjective factors combine to precipitate the transition to the new mode of production either by sudden collapse in a final crisis or gradual erosion of the basing on competition and the emerging dominance of cooperation. ==Causes of crises == Karl Marx considered his crisis theory to be his most substantial theoretical achievement. He presents it in its most developed form as ''Law of Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall'' combined with a discussion of various counter tendencies, which may slow or modify its impact. A key characteristic of these theoretical factors is that none of them are natural or accidental in origin but instead arise from systemic elements of capitalism as a mode of production and basic social order. In Marx's words, "The ''real barrier'' of capitalist production is ''capital itself''".〔"(Ch. 15 Vol 3 of Capital )". marxists.org〕 In Marxist terms, the economic crises are crises of overproduction and immiseration of the workers who, were it not for the capitalist control of the society, would be the determiners of both demand and production in the first place.〔"The ultimate reason for all real crises always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses as opposed to the drive of capitalist production to develop the productive forces as though only the absolute consuming power of society constituted their limit." Capital, Volume III Part V ''Division of Profit into Interest and Profit of Enterprise. Interest-Bearing Capital'' § II Ch. XXX ''Money-Capital and Real Capital'' p. 484 in the ''New World'' paperback edition.〕〔(''Money-Capital and Real Capital'' ¶ 20 )〕 These systemic factors include the classical 3: * ''Full employment profit squeeze.'' Capital accumulation can pull up the demand for labor power, raising wages. If wages rise "too high," it hurts the rate of profit, causing a recession. The interaction between the employment rate and the wage share has been mathematically formalised by the Goodwin model. * ''The tendency of the rate of profit to fall''. The accumulation of capital, the general advancement of techniques and scale of production, and the inexorable trend to oligopoly by the victors of capitalist market competition, all involve a general tendency for the degree of capital intensity, i.e., the "organic composition of capital" of production to rise. All else constant, this is claimed to lead to a fall in the rate of profit, which would slow down accumulation. * ''Overproduction''. If the capitalists win the class struggle to push wages down and labor effort up, raising the rate of surplus value, then a capitalist economy faces regular problems of excess producer supply and thus inadequate aggregate demand. However, as stated above, all such factors resolve to the synthetic viewpoint that all such crises are crises of over and/or misappropriated production relative to the ability and/or willingness of the workers who generate the bulk of demand to consume. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Crisis theory」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|