General rate of profit

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According to Karl Marx's theory, the general rate of profit is formed in the competition of capital for the most profitable investment sphere.

The following theoretical problem arises in explaining the rate of profit : If the rate of profit of a capital depends on its organic composition , then different capitals must have different profit rates - because the composition of constant capital c / variable capital v of capitals in the various branches of production is different .

On the other hand, however, precisely this cannot be, for there is “no doubt that in reality, apart from insignificant, accidental and compensating differences, the difference in the average rate of profit for the various branches of industry does not and could not exist without the whole system of capitalist production. ”Ultimately, it would be completely incompatible with the previously developed category of profit if it did not relate to the advanced capital, but rather it would depend on the organic composition and thus again, like surplus value , would relate to the variable capital.

Obviously, this contradiction cannot be resolved if one assumes that goods are sold on average at their values ​​according to the labor theory .

If capitals of different organic composition are to produce the same rate of profit , they must sell their commodities at prices that differ from the values ​​of the commodities, and not randomly, in the sense of the usual oscillation of market prices, but systematically - but at the same time must also remain correct that the goods are sold at their values.

In order to resolve this contradiction, Marx regards the capitals invested in different spheres of production as divisions of a single capital. This is not necessarily an arbitrary way of looking at things, because a single capital, e.g. B. a cotton factory, consists of different departments, where in the different departments, in the carding room, roving room etc. there are different ratios of variable and constant capital, and where the capital of the factory is also only the sum of the departments, or his organic composition is nothing more than the average composition of the capital of the departments.

Let us first consider five different spheres of production with different organic compositions of capital, under the simplifying assumptions of a turnover time of fixed capital = 1 year and an annual rate of surplus value of 100%, which should be the same for all capital. That means, capital and cost price are identical in the following example:

Capitals Rate of value added added value Product value Rate of profit
I. 80c + 20v 100% 20th 120 20%
II.70c + 30v 100% 30th 130 30%
III. 60c + 40v 100% 40 140 40%
IV.85c + 15v 100% 15th 115 15%
V. 95c + 5v 100% 5 105 5%

The math is simple. All five capitals taken together have an average composition of capital of 78c + 22v and an average rate of profit of 22%.

In order for this average rate of profit to become a general rate of profit, every capital does not have to sell its product at its respective value, but at an average price of 122. This resolves the initial contradiction: the prices of commodities deviate systematically from their values, but are for the sum the individual capitals are still identical.

In reality, however, the cost price and capital are not identical, as in this example, but the turnover times of the fixed capital vary and so does the share of the circulating capital in the total capital. Only a part of the constant capital will therefore usually go into the cost price.

The prices, which are initially constructed mathematically by simply taking an average of the different profit rates, and the resulting mass of profit is added to the cost price of the goods, are called production prices . These prices are certainly more than an arithmetic example, for the general rate of profit which they presuppose is not simply an imaginary average of the rates of profit in the different spheres of production, but a real result of the competition between capitals. This competition has the effect that the capitalists of the individual spheres - with regard to the distribution of the total profit produced by all of them - actually behave like a "total capital of society" or as "mere shareholders of a stock corporation, in which the shares in profit are evenly distributed per 100 become".

This results in two different determinants for the two different components of the production price , cost price and profit . The cost price is specific to the respective capital, it depends on its individual expenditure in c and v. The second component of the price of production, profit, does not depend on how the respective commodities are produced by the respective capitalist, but exclusively on the extent to which he participates in total social capital through his capital advance. To this extent the price of production, not for the individual commodity, but for the sum of the production prices of the commodities produced, is equal to the sum of their values.

The development of a general rate of profit leads to the fact that the origin of profit from the exploitation of the wage laborer is even more mystified than the mere category of profit itself does. In profit, the identity of this surplus with surplus value was merely qualitatively erased, in that the surplus was no longer related to its source, i.e. v, but to the entire capital. But quantitatively it was still the same, was p = m. The rate of profit could therefore appear to be just another way of calculating the same thing. With the category of the general rate of profit, this last indication of profit as to its origin has also disappeared. In quantitative terms, profit no longer seems to have anything to do with its source, unpaid surplus labor : profit no longer has anything to do with the formation of value in the individual production process of the respective capitalist, it is externally fixed.

For Georg Lukács , the development of a general rate of profit is the prerequisite and cause for the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall .

criticism

Emmanuel Farjoun and Moshe Machover doubt that in reality a uniform rate of profit will emerge in the industries; in fact, labor values in their original form would determine prices.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Volume 3, MEW 25, p. 162
  2. ^ Karl Marx, Das Kapital Volume III, p. 168
  3. See Joachim Bischoff , Axel Otto u. a. (1993): "Exploitation Self-Verätselung Regulation - The 3rd Volume of 'Capital'", Hamburg, pp. 58, 196f.
  4. ^ Georg Lukács 1972: Prolegomena. On the ontology of social being. 1st half volume, ed. v. Frank Benseler, Darmstadt / Neuwied 1986, quoted from Thomas Weiß 2013: “Three volumes for Charlie - With Keynes to the new way of regulation?” In: Sozialismus 6/2013
  5. Emmanuel Farjoun and Moshe Machover: Laws of Chaos. London 1983. Page leads to download

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