The rate of profit and class struggle - PowerPoint Presentation

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The rate of profit and class struggle

Michael

Roberts

Accumulation

“Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!” Volume One, Chapter 25  

“Accumulation for accumulation’s sake, production for production’s sake: by this formula classical economy expressed the historical mission of the bourgeoisie”

Volume one Chapter 24.

Accumulation

The general law of capitalist accumulation

The accumulation of capital, though originally appearing as its quantitative extension only, is effected, as we have seen, under a progressive qualitative change in its composition, under a constant increase of its constant, at the expense of its variable constituent.”

Rising organic composition

From the law of accumulation to the law of profitability

Displacing

living labour from production depresses the average rate of profit, since only living, productive wage-labour creates surplus-value (the social substance of profit, rent and interest).

The

tendency for the rate of profit to fall is offset by counteracting factors, but these factors cannot entirely negate ‘the law as such’.

Marx’s law of profitability

ROP = S/C+V

Here’s the trick!

s/v/

c/v+1

ROP falls if C/V rises faster than S/V

C/V rises faster (tendency) BUT there are times when S/V rises faster (countertendency)

Profitability and crises

The evidence: the UK

And productivity of

labor

From the general law of accumulation to the law of profitability as such

Both secular and cyclical

The evidence: Brazil

UK profitability and the class

struggle

The inter-wars years

The post-1945 era

Brazil: profitability and the class struggle