Crisis theory, the law of the tendency of the profit rate to fall, and Marx's studies in the 1870s

Monthly Review

Volumn 64, Issue 11, 2013, Pages 15-31

  Heinrich, Michael ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84878685764     PISSN: 00270520     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.14452/MR-064-11-2013-04_2     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1975), vol. 10, 135 (henceforth MECW).
2. These observations can be found in his Book on Crisis, a collection of materials about the crisis ordered according to countries The Book on Crisis will be published in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) (Berlin: Dietz-Verlag, later Akademie-Verlag, 1975), 11/14 (henceforth MEGA; the MEGA is divided in four sections: the Roman number stands for the section, and the Arabic number for the volume in this section.)
3. See Marx to Engels, Dec. 8, 1857, MECW, vol. 40, 217.
4. MECW, vol. 28, 195.
5. MECW, vol. 29, 91.
6. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1976), 132.
7. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).
8. Man, Capital, vol. 1, 437.
9. A more detailed critique of Marx's arguments in the machine fragment can be found in Michael Heinrich, 'The Fragment on Machines: A Marxian Misconception in the Grundrisse and its Overcoming in Capital", in Riccardo Bellofiore, Guido Starosta, and Peter D. Thomas, eds, In Marx's laboratory Critical Interpretations of the Grundrisse (Leiden: Brill Academic Press, 2013).
10. MKW, vol. 29, 261.
11. Cf. MECW, vol. 28, 236, 341;
12. MECW, vol. 29, 114-15.
13. MKW, vol. 32, 140.
14. See his letter to Kugelmann, December 28, 1862, MECW, vol. 41, 435.
15. The double requirement posed by Marx with regard to 'capital in general', of presenting a specific content (everything that appears in competition) at a certain level of abstraction (abstracted from individual capitals and the particularities of capital) proved to be unfeasible. The presentation of the process of capitalist reproduction as a whole and the constitution of the social average rate of profit is not possible at this level of abstraction; the distinction between particular sectors of social production and the competition of individual capitals are required. However the process of capitalist reproduction as a whole and the average rate of profit have to be developed before interestbearing capital can be presented, and the latter has to be presented before the real movement of competition can be dealt with (for a more extensive discussion of this point, see Michael Heinrich, Die Wissenschaft vom Wert Die Mansche Kritik der politischen Ökonomie mischen wissenschaftlicher Revolution und klassischer Tradition [Die Science of Value: Marx's Critique of Political Economy Between Scientific Revolution and Classical Tradition], 5th edition (Munster: Westfälisches Dampfboot 2011); an English translation will be published by Brill in 2014.
16. cf. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 683;
17. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 3 (London: Penguin, 1981), 751.
18. For a more detailed account on this point, see Michael Heinrich, 'Reconstruction or Deconstruction? Methodological Controversies about Value and Capital, and New Insights from the Critical Edition", in Riccardo Bellofiore and Roberto Fineschi, eds., Re-reading Marx: New Perspectives After the Critical Edition (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009): 71-98.
19. Adam Smith, An Inquiiy into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, in The Glasgow Edition of the Works and the Correspondence of Adam Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1976), 111. Originally published 1776.
20. David Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, in Piero Sraffa, ed., The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951), 289-300. Originally published 1823.
21. Marx subjected Ricardo's theory of ground rent to an extensive critique in numerous passages of the Theories of Surplus-Value, see MECW, vol. 31, 457-551.
22. Acritique of Ricardo's explanation of the falling profit rate can be found in MECW, vol. 32, 72-103.
23. Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 319-20.
24. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 91.
25. Marx, Capital, vol. 3, Chapter 13.
26. Simon Clarke, like many others, accentuates that Marx's profit law has to be seen not in isolation but in a 'wider theoretical context' as part of the 'complex analysis of secular tendencies of capitalist accumulation. " See Marx's Theory of Crisis (London: Macmillan, 1994), 208. Nevertheless in Chapter 13 of Capital, vol. 3, Marx begins with a discussion of the profit law in such isolation. Marx knows very well that before putting an issue in a wider context first we have to provide arguments for it However when the basic arguments already prove to be wrong, they will not become correct by putting them in a wider context Therefore the profit law will be discussed in the same abstract context in which it was introduced by Marx in Chapter 13.
27. Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 356.
28. The many 'proofs' of the law that can be found in the literature, either rest upon logical errors, similar to those just demonstrated in the case of Marx, or upon absurd assumptions, such as the precondition that v = 0, as in the work of Andrew Kliman, Reclaiming Marx's 'Capital': A Refutation of the Myth of Inconsistency (Lanham: Lexington, 2007).
29. This problem is discussed, as well as the various attempts at rescuing Marx's law, in Heinrich, Die Wissenschaft vom Wert.
30. Of course Engels's intention was not to deceive the reader. He wanted, as he emphasized, to create a 'readable' edition. In doing so, he made certain editorial decisions which were not recognizable as editorial decisions to the reader, but which considerably influenced the reader's understanding of the text. For more on this, see Michael Heinrich, 'Engels' Edition and Marx's Original Manuscript' Science & Society 60, no. 4, (Winter 1996/97): 452-66;
31. and Jurgen Jungnickel and Carl-Erich Vollgraf, 'Marx in Marx's Words?', International Journal of Political Economy 32, no. 1(Spring 2002):35-78.
32. 8 The various approaches are dealt with more extensively in Heinrich, Die Wissenschah vom Wert:, see also An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Kart Marx's Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012)
33. Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 352-53.
34. Although sometimes formulations can be found that could be understood as underconsumptionist, see Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 615.
35. MECW, vol. 28, 340.
36. MECW. vol. 43, 160.
37. They will be published in MEGA IV/19.
38. MEGA 11/14.
39. MEGA 11/14, 128.
40. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 781.
41. On the basis of this note, Shalom Groll and Ze'ev Orzech already supposed that Marx doubted his own law of the rate of profit In light of the manuscripts from the 1870s that have been published in the meantime, this supposition has gained considerable plausibility. See their "Technical Progress and Value in Marx's Theory of the Decline in the Rate of Profit, an Exegetical Approach', History of Political Economy 19, no. 4(1987):604.
42. See, among other things, his letter to Kugelmann from June 27, 1870, MECW, vol. 43, 528. In connection with his study of Russian landed-propeity relations, as well as further ethnological studies, Mara also finally transcends the Eurocentrism that one finds in his writings on India from the 1850s.
43. See Kevin B. Anderson, Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Westem Societies (Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 2010)
44. and Kolja Lindner, 'Marx Eurocentrism: Postcolonial Studies and Marx Scholarship', Radical Philosophy 161(2010):27-41.
45. See MECW, vol. 24, 583-85. It is noteworthy, however, that Marx apparently was not familiar with the book Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (1873) by Walter Bagehot-the publisher of The Economist, which Marx read regularly. This book is regarded today as the first formulation of the pnnciples of a money market managed by a central bank.
46. Marx, Capital, vol, 1, 102.
47. MECW, vol. 44, 504.
48. MECW, vol. 45, 354, accentuation by Marx.
49. as well as the letter to Danielson from September 12, 1880, MECW, vol. 46, 31.
50. Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 205.
51. MECW, vol. 46, 16.
52. MECW, vol. 46, 161. The unfortunate circumstances mentioned here refer to Marx's poor health and the death of his wife Jenny on December 2, 1881.