Perhaps this might become more clear if you could explain the "secular trend" and "underconsumption" in relation to the US economy in recent history, let's say 1994-2000, the recession in 2001, and the recovery to 2006.
At least to me, none of that has anything to do with the workers' ability to purchase commodites. As for the fictitious capital portion-- just one comment: Again, if capital always relies on fictitious capital then how or why does that mechanism fail, and then prove incapable of "reanimating" capital? Fictitious capital, or speculation, lying, cheating, accompanies capital's every circuit. Its collapse, like its expansion is an index to what is going on in rates of return, and those rates of return are most definitely not driven by consumption. Business cycle blunted? You can always tell when the capitalist economy is about to tank. It's precisely when people starting congratulating themselves for having triumphed over the business cycle. Marx does say that ultimately the source of capital's contradiction, crises, is in the poverty it creates and imposes on the society. That is a lot different than saying the source is in the inability of workers to buy the commodities they produce. Even more different is the analysis Marx provides through the 3 volumes of Capital, TSV, and the Grundrisse, of the conflicts between means and relations of production. If anybody wants to know my analysis of the recent period, and I realize that is a big "if," you can check out the archives at: http://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.com Look at Wages of Overproduction, 96 Tears, and others. None of this, and I'm not afraid of anyone "biting" me on my analysis, has anything to do with workers ability to purchase products, nor fictitious capital.
