The “first version” of Marx’s theory of crisis: the fall of the social mass of surplus value and the absolute internal limit of capital

Authors

  • Nuno Miguel Cardoso Machado Universidade de Lisboa. Centro de Investigação em Sociologia Económica e das Organizações. Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7050-4576

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/0101-41614916ncm

Keywords:

Marx, Crisis, Surplus-value, Profit, Labour

Abstract

Marx’s theory of crisis is usually associated with the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit presented in volume three of Capital. According to Marx, the rising organic composition of capital – the fact that variable capital grows in absolute terms, but falls relatively because of the faster growth of constant capital – results in the fall of the general rate of profit, which undermines the reproduction of capital. In this article I will argue that: i) there is a “first version” of Marx’s theory of crisis, outlined especially in the Grundrisse, which ascribes the secular crisis of the capitalist economy to the absolute decline of living labour and, therefore, to the falling mass of socially produced surplus-value; ii) only this “first version” of the theory of crisis allows the absolute internal limit of capital to be deduced consistently.

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Published

31-03-2019

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Vol. 49 No. 1 (2019)

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Articles

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How to Cite

Machado, N. M. C. (2019). The “first version” of Marx’s theory of crisis: the fall of the social mass of surplus value and the absolute internal limit of capital. Estudos Econômicos (São Paulo), 49(1), 163-203. https://doi.org/10.1590/0101-41614916ncm