Research On The Law That The Capital Growth Rate Tends To Decline

Marx regarded the movement of economic and social development as a process of natural history,and capitalism was only a brief stage of this natural history process.Its final demise was just like the inevitable collapse of houses under the influence of gravity,which was not transferred by anyone's will.The only purpose and direct motive of capitalist production is the proliferation of capital,and the means to achieve this end is to constantly develop productive forces to improve labor efficiency,which in turn will hinder the proliferation of capital.This is the inherent contradiction of the capitalist mode of production.This contradiction profoundly reflects the temporary and transitional nature of capitalism.Marx keenly grasped this point,and put forward the law of decline in the general rate of profit to illustrate this contradiction.This law contains rich contents,the core of which is to reveal the contradictory movement between the development of productive forces and the proliferation of capital.But unfortunately,Marx's research work was not finally completed,more than a hundred years after the law came into being,the academic debate has never stopped.At first,this paper makes a detailed review of the domestic and foreign scholars' discussions on the law of decline in the general rate of profit,distinguishing the two aspects of research,namely research on basic theory and research on empirical fact,pointing out that the first level is the foundation of research,and also no fundamental progress,while the second condition is not enough of previous studies,this article studies focus on the basic theoretical research.On the other hand,There are three main controversies in academia: first,what is the type or nature of technological progress? Second,what is the comprehensive influence of the changes of capital technology composition,residual value ratio and constant capital factor price on the general profit rate? Third,what important effect does the change of general profit rate have on the development of capitalism? The first question is the premise,the second is the subject,and the third is the corollary.The three questions are the progressive relationship.In fact,Marx already had a clear and scientific judgment on the first question,and the academic debate was mainly due to the misunderstanding and prejudice against Marx.There are two ways to solve the second problem: first,analyze the impact of technological progress on each factor separately,and then make a total analysis to see whose role is stronger;The second is to directly carry out the overall and comprehensive analysis,which requires the construction of mathematical models.Marx took the first path,and because of the mathematical tools of the day,his analysis was incomplete.Since the second question has not been completely solved,the third question also needs further discussion.For the first question,this paper makes an appropriate extension on the basis of Marx to prepare the conditions for the follow-up research.The process of production is the combination of labor force and means of production,that is,the subjective and objective aspects of production.From the subjective aspect,namely the consumption of labor force,the development level of productivity can be measured by the quantity of products produced by unit labor force in unit time,which is called labor production efficiency or subjective productivity in this paper.From the objective aspect,namely the consumption of means of production,the development level of productivity can be measured by the amount of material and energy consumed by the production unit product,which is called mass energy conversion efficiency or objective productivity.Subjective productivity has two characteristics: first,it is a relative standard,which varies with the subject;Secondly,it is the criterion that the subject pays most attention to.The development of productivity is always manifested as the improvement of subjective productivity.Objective productivity also has two characteristics: on the one hand,it is an absolute standard and a reflection of the physical and chemical process of production,and it does not take the change of the subject as a transfer;On the other hand,only when it touches the bearing capacity limit of the natural environment or the intermittent stage of major technological innovation will it increase rapidly,and there is an insurmountable natural limit for its improvement.On the basis of the distinction between subjective and objective productive forces,this paper analyzes three properties of technological progress: first,technological progress tends to save total labor in the long run;Second,in the process of technological progress,the saving of living labor always tends to exceed the saving of means of production,so as to improve the composition of capital and technology.The third is the trend of accelerating technological progress.On this basis,the paper constructs profit rate model and capital multiplication rate model respectively.At present,the model of comprehensive analysis is "Okishio Theorem",but it is a wrong attempt based on the price system of Sraffa method.This article first carries on the critical analysis to it,then returns to Marx to find the reproduction schema as analysis tool.However,reproduction schema is only value analysis,and does not reflect the change of use value,nor does it establish a relationship between use value and value.This paper solves this problem by introducing technical coefficients(? and ?)into the schema.The model deduced that the profit rate mainly depends on the technical coefficient.Because of the different trend of subjective and objective productivity and three properties of technological progress,the profit rate tends to rise in the long run but may decline in the early or some stages.The conclusion that profit margins tend to rise seems to demonstrate that the development of productivity is conducive to capital multiplication,but this is only a superficial "paradox".In fact,Marx distinguished three kinds of capital circulation forms,corresponding to three kinds of capital multiplication rate,namely money capital multiplication rate,production capital multiplication rate and commodity capital multiplication rate.Profit rate is money capital multiplication rate,it is a kind of special form of capital multiplication rate only.Only the commodity capital multiplication rate can reflect the rate of multiplication of moving capital.In this paper,the commodity capital multiplication rate is actually used to express the rate of multiplication of capital.The exact basis of reproduction pattern is also the formula of commodity capital cycle.Analysis tools and objects are unified.It can be seen from the model that the capital multiplication rate also mainly depends on the technical coefficient.Due to the different change trend of subjective and objective productivity and three properties of technological progress,the capital multiplication rate tends to decline until it becomes negative for a long time.Through the derivation of the model,this paper puts forward the law that the capital multiplication rate tends to decline.First of all,theoretically speaking,with the development of productivity,the capital multiplication rate will gradually decline until it drops to negative value,and the total social capital will experience the process of first increasing,then decreasing,until it decreases to 0.In this process,the capital multiplication rate will be hindered by counter-factors,and its decline is not monotonous,but a trend.Secondly,the law of capital multiplication rate tends to decline,which is actually only the corollary of labor theory of value.Imagine a fully automated system of production in which living labor is zero,under which the value of the total product becomes zero through constant reproduction,and the categories of the capitalist mode of production--goods,value,capital--disappear.The productivity corresponding to this fully automated system of production is the ultimate productivity that the capitalist mode of production can theoretically accommodate.Third,this theoretical limit may not be reached in the real world.Because,as Marx said,if the absolute quantity of labor begins to decrease,then there will be a social revolution when large numbers of people will be left on the streets in an unviable situation.This is another aspect of the trend nature of the law.The fact that this limit does not occur in the real capitalist society does not negate the value of the law.On the one hand,the trend nature of the law promotes the development and progress of capitalism in the contradictory movement;on the other hand,the proposal of the law can enhance the understanding of capitalism.Finally,this law actually implies that the absolute amount of profit decreases as the profit margin increases.Because the absolute amount of labor employed by capital has gone down.The rise of profit margin can not play the role of promoting capital proliferation.On the contrary,with the development of productivity,the growth of capital is restrained due to the decrease of profit.The innovation of this paper can be summarized as "three clear distinctions".The first is to make a clear distinction between the cyclical economic crisis and the historical trend of the inevitable demise of capitalism,pointing out that the internal mechanisms of the two are not the same,so as to transfer the research focus on the law of decline in the general rate of profit to the long-term trend of capitalism.The second is to clearly distinguish the two apparent forms of productive forces,namely subjective productive forces and objective productive forces.On this basis,three properties of technological progress are studied in detail,which lays a foundation for the subsequent analysis.The third is to clearly distinguish the three forms of capital multiplication rate,so as to solve the "paradox" between the increase of profit rate and the obstruction of capital multiplication,and further put forward the law that capital multiplication rate tends to decline,and answer the problem of how high productivity can the capitalist mode of production accommodate.On the basis of dialectical materialism and historical materialism as the basic guiding ideology,this paper comprehensively uses dialectical logic method and mathematical analysis method to deeply study the contradictory movement between the development of productive forces and the proliferation of capital.In particular,the methods are applied from abstract to concrete,dynamic analysis and static analysis,partial analysis and overall analysis,qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis.Although the research in this paper has achieved some results,it is still relatively shallow,and there are still three deficiencies: first,the model has made a lot of simplified treatment,there is still a big gap to accurately describe the social reality;Second,it has not analyzed the movement development of the inherent contradictions in the law of capital multiplication rate tendency to decline,that is,"the development of the internal contradictions of the law";Third,the empirical test is not carried out and there is no concrete analysis of practical problems with the conclusions drawn.All three aspects need further improvement.