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Tendency Of The Rate Of Profit To Fall
The tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF) is a theory in the crisis theory of political economy, according to which the rate of profit—the ratio of the profit to the amount of invested capital—decreases over time. This hypothesis gained additional prominence from its discussion by Karl Marx in Chapter 13 of ''Capital, Volume III,'' but economists as diverse as Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, David Ricardo and Stanley Jevons referred explicitly to the TRPF as an empirical phenomenon that demanded further theoretical explanation, although they differed on the reasons why the TRPF should necessarily occur. Geoffrey Hodgson stated that the theory of the TRPF "has been regarded, by most Marxists, as the backbone of revolutionary Marxism. According to this view, its refutation or removal would lead to reformism in theory and practice". Stephen Cullenberg stated that the TRPF "remains one of the most important and highly debated issues of all of economics" because it ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crisis Theory
Crisis theory, concerning the causes and consequences of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall in a capitalist system, is associated with Marxian critique of political economy, and was further popularised through Marxist economics. History Earlier analysis by Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi provided the first suggestions of the systemic roots of Crisis. "The distinctive feature of Sismondi's analysis is that it is geared to an explicit dynamic model in the modern sense of this phrase ... Sismondi's great merit is that he used, systematically and explicitly, a schema of periods, that is, that he was the first to practice the particular method of dynamics that is called period analysis". Marx praised and built on Sismondi's theoretical insights. Rosa Luxemburg and Henryk Grossman both subsequently drew attention to both Sismondi's work on the nature of capitalism, and as a reference point for Karl Marx. Grossman in particular pointed out how Sismondi had contributed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Use Value
Use value (german: Gebrauchswert) or value in use is a concept in classical political economy and Marxist economics. It refers to the tangible features of a commodity (a tradeable object) which can satisfy some human requirement, want or need, or which serves a useful purpose. In Karl Marx's critique of political economy, any product has a labor-value and a use-value, and if it is traded as a commodity in markets, it additionally has an exchange value, most often expressed as a money-price. Marx acknowledges that commodities being traded also have a ''general utility'', implied by the fact that people want them, but he argues that this by itself says nothing about the specific character of the economy in which they are produced and sold. Origin of the concept The concepts of value, use value, utility, exchange value and price have a very long history in economic and philosophical thought. From Aristotle to Adam Smith and David Ricardo, their meanings have evolved. Smith recogn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Bottomore
Thomas Burton Bottomore (8 April 1929, England – 9 December 1992, Sussex, England) was a British Marxist sociologist. Bottomore was Secretary of the International Sociological Association from 1953 to 1959. He was the eighth president of ISA (1974-1978). He was a prolific editor and translator of Marxist works, notably his collections published in 1963: ''Marx's Early Writings'' and ''Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy''. He was Reader in Sociology at the London School of Economics from 1952 to 1964. He was head of the Department of Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver from 1965 to 1967, leaving after a dispute over academic freedom. He was Professor of Sociology at the University of Sussex from 1968 to 1985. Bottomore edited and contributed to numerous journals of sociology and political science, and edited ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought'' in 1983 and co-edited (with William Outhwaite) ''The Blackw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reserve Army Of Labor
Reserve army of labour is a concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy. It refers to the unemployed and underemployed in capitalist society. It is synonymous with "industrial reserve army" or "relative surplus population", except that the unemployed can be defined as those actually looking for work and that the relative surplus population also includes people unable to work. The use of the word "army" refers to the workers being conscripted and regimented in the workplace in a hierarchy under the command or authority of the owners of capital. Marx did not invent the term "reserve army of labour". It was already being used by Friedrich Engels in his 1845 book ''The Condition of the Working Class in England''. What Marx did was theorize the reserve army of labour as a necessary part of the capitalist organization of work. Prior to what Marx regarded as the start of the capitalist era in human history (i.e. before the 16th century), structural unemployment on a mass s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constant Capital
Constant capital (c), is a concept created by Karl Marx and used in Marxian political economy. It refers to one of the forms of capital invested in production, which contrasts with variable capital (v). The distinction between constant and variable refers to an aspect of the economic role of factors of production in creating a new value. Constant capital includes the outlay of money on (1) fixed assets, i.e. physical plant, machinery, land and buildings, (2) raw materials and ancillary operating expenses (including external services purchased), and (3) certain faux frais of production (incidental expenses). Variable capital, by contrast, refers to the capital outlay on labour costs insofar as they represent workers' earnings, the sum total of wages. The concept of constant vs. variable capital contrasts with that of fixed vs. circulating capital (used not only by Marx but by David Ricardo and other classical economists). The latter distinction corresponds to the very common d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Immiseration Thesis
In Marxist theory and Marxian economics, the immiseration thesis, also referred to as emiseration thesis, is derived from Karl Marx's analysis of economic development in capitalism, implying that the nature of capitalist production stabilizes real wages, reducing wage growth relative to total value creation in the economy, leading to the increasing power of capital in society. The immiseration thesis is related to Marx's analysis of the rising organic composition of capital and reduced demand for labor relative to capital equipment as technology develops. Karl Marx In Karl Marx's early writings of the 1840s, he was influenced by David Ricardo's theory of wages, which held that wages tended down to a subsistence minimum. This was the "Iron law of wages" coined by the socialist Ferdinand Lassalle. In ''On the Question of Free Trade'' (1847), Marx wrote: "Thus, as means are constantly being found for the maintenance of labor on cheaper and more wretched food, the minimum of wages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labor Power
Labour power (in german: Arbeitskraft; in french: force de travail) is a key concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist political economy. Marx distinguished between the capacity to do work, labour power, from the physical act of working, labour. Labour power exists in any kind of society, but on what terms it is traded or combined with means of production to produce goods and services has historically varied greatly. Under capitalism, according to Marx, the ''productive powers of labour'' appear as the ''creative power of capital''. Indeed, "labour power at work" becomes a component of capital, it functions as working capital. Work becomes just work, workers become an abstract labour force, and the control over work becomes mainly a management prerogative. Definition Karl Marx introduces the concept in chapter 6 of the first volume of ''Capital'', as follows: :"By labour-power or capacity for labour is to be understood the aggregate of those mental and physical c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rate Of Exploitation
In Marxian economics, the rate of exploitation is the ratio of the total amount of unpaid labor done ( surplus-value) to the total amount of wages paid (the value of labour power). The rate of exploitation is often also called the rate of surplus-value. Divergence of the two rates Marx did not regard the rate of surplus value and the rate of exploitation as necessarily identical, ''insofar'' as there was a divergence between surplus value ''realised'' and surplus value ''produced''. Thus, the quantity of surplus labour performed by workers in an enterprise might correspond to a value higher or lower than the surplus value actually ''realised'' as profit income upon sales of output. The implication is that if the gross profit volume was related to wage costs to establish the rate of surplus value, this might overstate or understate the real rate of labor-exploitation. Although this is a subtle point, it has sometimes played an important role in wage bargaining negotiations by tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David McLellan (political Scientist)
David McLellan (born 10 February 1940) is an English scholar of Marxism. He has written extensively on the thought of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Simone Weil. Life David McLellan was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St. John's College, Oxford University. McLellan is currently visiting professor of political theory at Goldsmiths' College, University of London. He was previously professor of political theory at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. He has also been visiting professor at the State University of New York, guest fellow in politics at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, and has lectured widely in North America and Europe. Bibliography * '' The Young Hegelians and Karl Marx'', 1969. * ''Marx before Marxism'', 1970. * ''The Thought of Karl Marx: An Introduction'', 1971. * '' Karl Marx: His Life and Thought'', 1973 (also published under the title ''Karl Marx: A Biography''). * ''Marx'', Fontana Mod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Mandel
Ernest Ezra Mandel (; also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter (5 April 1923 – 20 July 1995), was a Belgian Marxian economist, Trotskyist activist and theorist, and Holocaust survivor. He fought in the underground resistance against the Nazis during the occupation of Belgium. Life Born in Frankfurt, Mandel was recruited to the Belgian section of the international Trotskyist movement, the Fourth International, in his youth in Antwerp. His parents, Henri and Rosa Mandel, were Jewish emigres from Poland, the former a member of Rosa Luxemburg's and Karl Liebknecht's Spartacist League. The beginning of Mandel's period at university was interrupted when the German occupying forces closed the university. During World War II, while still a teenager, he joined the Belgian Trotskyist organisation alongside Abraham Leon and Martin Monath. He twice escaped after being arrested in the course of resistance activities, and survived i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Weeks (economist)
John Weeks (1941 – 26 July 2020) was an American economist. Life Weeks, born in Austin, Texas, was Professor Emeritus at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. His research interests were in theoretical and policy-applied macroeconomics and economic development. He published academic papers, books and policy reports in these areas. Retrieved 14 September 2010 He is credited with coining the phrase "quantity theory of competition" to reflect a proposition that more competition in various aspects of the markets (producers, consumers, and workers) will create a more efficient economy. In August 2015, Weeks endorsed |
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels" '' Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; 28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) was a German philosopher, critic of political economy, historian, political theorist and revolutionary socialist. He was also a bus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
