Marx’s Theory of the Declining Rate of Profit and the Collapse of Capitalism

Walter Eltis
Additional contact information
Walter Eltis: Exeter College

Chapter 8 in The Classical Theory of Economic Growth, 2000, pp 265-309 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Marx believed that the technical advances which offered workers so little would in the end prove equally disappointing to the capitalists. Production would become increasingly concentrated into a handful of giant companies, so that the beneficiaries of capitalism would not be numerous. Moreover, the technological trends that he extrapolated from his own century indicated that growing capital intensification would force down the rate of profit that even these companies could earn until they failed to be financially viable. Alternatively, capitalism might collapse because an impoverished working class could provide no market for their vast potential output. It is remarkable that Marx could predict a dismal economic future for both workers and capitalists in the face of rapid and continuous technical advance.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-59820-1_8

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230598201

DOI: 10.1007/978-0-230-59820-1_8

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().