On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Robert Mckee wrote: > The law [of the tendential fall of the rate of profit] is central to Marx’s > materialist conception of history. If it is believed that, in the long run, > the rate of profit might just as easily rise as fall or that it will tend to > oscillate forever around some average value, as Heinrich suggests, then the > capitalist mode of production takes on the character of a permanent ongoing > system. Instead, Marx’s law of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall > over the long run most convincingly demonstrates the transient nature of > capitalism.<
This incorporates a fallacy that I thought Marxists had dropped. Even if the rate of profit does fall in the long run (causing crises, stagnation, etc.), that doesn't imply that capitalism is transitory. It's not crises that end capitalism (or any other social system). Rather, its the response by the producers (the proletariat under capitalism) and other social forces, which can create a new social system of production (but of course don't always do so). Crises create possibilities for change rather than ending the system. -- Jim Devine / "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
