The Unmaking of Marx’s Capital: Heinrich’s Attempt to Eliminate Marx’s Crisis Theory

Andrew Kliman, Alan Freeman, Nick Potts, Alexey Gusev and Brendan Cooney

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Michael Heinrich’s recent Monthly Review article claims that the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit (LTFRP) was not proved by Marx and cannot be proved. Heinrich also argues that Marx had doubts about the law and that, for this and other reasons, his theory of capitalist economic crisis was only provisional and more or less in continual flux. This response shows that Heinrich’s elementary misunderstanding of the law––his belief that it is meant to predict what must inevitably happen rather than to explain what does happen––is the source of his charge that it is unproved. It then shows that a simple misreading of Marx’s text lies at the basis of Heinrich’s claim that the simplest version of the LTFRP, “the law as such,” is a failure. Marx’s argument that increases in the rate of surplus-value cannot “cancel” the fall in the rate of profit is then defended against Heinrich’s attempt to refute it. Finally, the paper presents evidence that Marx was indeed convinced that the LTFRP is correct and that he regarded the crisis theory of volume 3 of Capital as finished in a theoretical sense.

Keywords: Crisis Theory; Marxist Economics; TSSI; Rate of Profit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B4 E0 E22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-07-22, Revised 2013-07-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in SSRN Working Papers Series (2013): pp. 1-20

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