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Falling rate of profit: Difference between revisions

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The '''tendency of the rate of profit to fall''' (TRPF) is a law of capitalist development identified by Marx in Volume III of ''Capital''. As capitalists compete, they raise labor productivity by investing in machinery — raising the organic composition of capital (c/v). Since (per Marx's labor theory of value) only living labor produces surplus value, the rate of profit s/(c+v) tends to fall over time, even as the mass of profit grows.
The '''tendency of the rate of profit to fall''' (TRPF) is Marx's law of capitalism's self-undermining — presented by Haz Al-Din in debate as the hinge between value theory and civilizational choice.


== Countervailing tendencies ==
== Haz's exposition ==
Marx listed counteracting factors: increasing the intensity of exploitation, depressing wages below the value of labor-power, cheapening the elements of constant capital, relative overpopulation, foreign trade, and the stock system. The law therefore operates as a tendency, manifesting in crises, restructuring, and expansion into new markets.
From the [https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/2aaac100-82e8-4b5e-b568-7b49cfaac04f/ DEBATE BLOODSPORTS stream]:


== Significance ==
> "Capital's production aims not for use values but for exchange value expanding... Production for exchange value runs into contradictions — one being the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. These tendencies reveal a contradiction between the use value necessary for society and the exchange value... Society is at a fork: production at the level of what's necessary for society as society sees fit, versus what's necessary for the valorization of capital.
* The TRPF grounds the Marxist explanation of capitalist crisis as internal to the system, not accidental.
 
* It explains capitalism's compulsive expansionism: imperialism, globalization, and the drive to commodify all of social life are responses to profitability pressure.
> The tendency of the rate of profit to fall is a consequence of overproduction. Marx regarded that contradiction as incredibly ironic: overproduction — creating more abundance, more wealth — yet at the level of the commodity form and exchange value, it's actually the depletion of wealth... Marx regards that as the foundation of a new mode of production based on use value."
* Heterodox economists (e.g., the monthly-review school, Anwar Sha, Michael Roberts) have produced empirical studies supporting a falling rate of profit in the advanced economies since the postwar boom.
 
== The significance ==
* TRPF is not an econometric prediction but a '''dialectical structure''': capital's success in producing abundance is registered as failure in value terms — hence crisis, hence the forced choice between use-value production (socialism) and value-destruction (barbarism, war, artificial scarcity).
* It grounds the [[We already live in socialism]] thesis: socialized production has outgrown the value-form; only command by the value-form keeps abundance from being social.


== See also ==
== See also ==
* [[Capital]]
* [[Capitalist Socialism]]
* [[Economic crisis]]
* [[We already live in socialism]]


== References ==
== References ==
<references/>
<references/>


[[Category:Marxist theory]][[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:Economics]][[Category:Marxism]][[Category:Theory]]

Revision as of 09:54, 21 August 2026

The tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF) is Marx's law of capitalism's self-undermining — presented by Haz Al-Din in debate as the hinge between value theory and civilizational choice.

Haz's exposition

From the DEBATE BLOODSPORTS stream:

> "Capital's production aims not for use values but for exchange value expanding... Production for exchange value runs into contradictions — one being the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. These tendencies reveal a contradiction between the use value necessary for society and the exchange value... Society is at a fork: production at the level of what's necessary for society as society sees fit, versus what's necessary for the valorization of capital.

> The tendency of the rate of profit to fall is a consequence of overproduction. Marx regarded that contradiction as incredibly ironic: overproduction — creating more abundance, more wealth — yet at the level of the commodity form and exchange value, it's actually the depletion of wealth... Marx regards that as the foundation of a new mode of production based on use value."

The significance

  • TRPF is not an econometric prediction but a dialectical structure: capital's success in producing abundance is registered as failure in value terms — hence crisis, hence the forced choice between use-value production (socialism) and value-destruction (barbarism, war, artificial scarcity).
  • It grounds the We already live in socialism thesis: socialized production has outgrown the value-form; only command by the value-form keeps abundance from being social.

See also

References