Overproduction crisis
In Marxist-Leninist social theory, the overproduction crisis is a regularly recurring economic crisis of capitalism and imperialism , because the so-called " anarchy of the market " leads to capital repeatedly producing too many goods compared to the affluent demand for goods.
Theory
The cause of this crisis is the growing contradiction between the private appropriation of production profits and the social character of production. ("The people get less and less from profit" - strictly scientifically it means that an ever larger part of the national income is profit .)
In the course of the growth of labor productivity through automation , rationalization , increased efficiency, wage dumping, increased working hours, unpaid overtime, low-wage workers, special shifts, etc. in all areas of the economy, this contrast leads to production with fewer and fewer workers, so that at the same time the purchasing power of the producing population always increases continues to decline and the owners of the means of production, the capitalists , can sell fewer and fewer products. (Because the profits that have risen in the short term due to layoffs are appropriated privately by the capitalist and not passed on to the labor force that he has rationalized away.) Viewed in this way, the overproduction crisis is also a synonym for the underconsumption crisis .
More would then be produced than can be sold, which restricts production , further workers are laid off, whose purchasing power then also falls, so that a self-reinforcing vicious circle arises.
The reactions assumed by the theory
According to this theory, the capitalists and the market economy-oriented politicians first try to overcome this overproduction by lowering prices, lowering wages and mainly by expanding exports to other countries. However, this is no longer possible during a global economic crisis , since then in almost all countries there was insufficient purchasing power. A next step of capitalism could then be a violent conquest of new markets and raw material sources, as well as the massive violent destruction of previously produced values by means of war or civil war in order to increase the demand for goods and products again. At the same time, the demand for armaments increases, the apparatus of repression and exploitation can be expanded domestically without much need of explanation, and the system can deport and kill superfluous, dissatisfied workers through war.
The consequence assumed by the theory
Before or at the latest after such a war or world war, however, a lossless peaceful path would usually be taken, because if the private appropriation of profits were replaced by social appropriation (through tax increases and expropriations for capitalists, nationalization ), this vicious circle could be broken quickly.
Historical background and empirical evaluation
The background to this central Marxist-Leninist theory was the observation of business cycles and the politics of imperialism in the 19th century. The theory of the overproduction crisis arose from the finding that production was higher in the economic downturn than in the optimistic assumption of the upswing ( pig cycle ) and the hope of the colonial policy of the time to open up new markets exclusively for the colonial power. This theory is the basis of the Marxist-Leninist conception of imperialism as a special stage of development (stage) of capitalism. According to Lenin, the state monopoly phase of this imperialism (Stamokap) is the last phase of capitalism.
See also
Individual proof
- ↑ Tobias ten Brink : Geopolitics - History and Present of Capitalist State Competition . Westphalian steam boat, Münster 2008, ISBN 978-3-89691-123-0 , p. 96, footnote 55 .