Collapse theory

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The breakdown theory in Marxism is understood to mean a theory according to which capitalism must necessarily break down.

history

The German-Polish economist Henryk Grossmann (1881–1950) formulated in 1929 in his work The Law of Accumulation and Collapse of the Capitalist System : “ Our task is to show how the capitalist reproduction process is necessary due to causes that arise from the economic cycle itself runs in cyclical, i.e. periodically repeating ascent and descent movements and ultimately leads to the collapse of the capitalist system. "(P. 79).

However, he also expresses himself more weakly: “ How, in what way can accumulation bring capitalist production to a collapse, if we first disregard the counteracting tendencies of which Marx speaks? "(P. 79). Grossmann speaks of both the “law of collapse ” and the “ tendency to collapse ”.

Originally, the term was used critically by Eduard Bernstein against Karl Marx . Bernstein criticized parts of the Marxian theory by claiming that a collapse, a big "Kladderadatsch" - an old Berlin expression that means something like "something falls down and breaks into pieces" - of capitalism is not inevitable, and therefore none violent overthrow, no revolution was required, but rather that political socialism could gradually be achieved through a series of reforms . In doing so, he triggered the revisionism dispute in the SPD.

Rosa Luxemburg , on the other hand, argued that capital always needs external spaces in order to be able to sell its goods. As soon as the whole world is capitalist and there are no more external spaces, the economy based on capital would inevitably collapse. Capital cannot develop enough demand for its products by itself, which is why it is dependent on demand from outside. In doing so, this “outside” becomes part of the capitalist economy itself, so that ultimately nothing will be left outside of it. Today, however, many Marxists assume that capital is able to create its own demand and is not dependent on non-capitalist spaces for this point.

Grossmann starts from his own version of Marx's law of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall . Capitalism must finally collapse because the investments required by technical progress are greater than can be produced overall (see detailed description under Henryk Grossmann ). In addition to a lack of demand (Luxembourg) or a lack of added value (Grossmann), other reasons for collapse come into question, such as the increasing impoverishment of the working masses or processes of consciousness in them. To what extent Marx himself believed in a collapse is controversial.

criticism

Critics of collapse theories like Nikolai Kondratjew reject a deterministic collapse law. History has shown that it is not deterministic, meaning that regular crises and major crises do not necessarily have to lead to a breakdown. These Marxists also deny that a collapse theory can be derived from Karl Marx's theory, even if individual statements can be found in Marx and Engels that seem to indicate that both believed in an imminent collapse, at least for a time, including the allusions in Marx's early work “ Grundrisse ”.

Michael Heinrich ascribes a historical relief function to the collapse theory of capital. "No matter how bad the current defeats were, the end of the enemy was ultimately certain." . Crises are in capitalism not only destructive, "rather in crises unity of moments is that (such as production and consumption) forthwith include, but are against each made independent (production and consumption obey different rules), restored by force." .

literature

  • Rainer Diederichs: The third industrial revolution and the crisis of capitalism - collapse theories in the neo-Marxist discussion , Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2004, ISBN 3-8288-8750-3 .
  • Henryk Grossmann: The law of accumulation and collapse of the capitalist system . Leipzig 1929
    • New edition: Archive Socialist Literature 8, New Critique Publishing House, Frankfurt 1970, ISBN 3-8015-0065-9 .
  • Michael Heinrich : The science of value . Westphalian steam boat, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-89691-454-5 .
  • Rosa Luxemburg: The Accumulation of Capital - A Contribution to the Economic Explanation of Imperialism. Berlin 1913.
  • Oliver Nachtwey: World market and imperialism - On the history of the origins of the classical Marxist theory of imperialism . ISP Science & Research 21. Cologne 2005. ISBN 3-89900-021-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. Heinrich: Critique of Political Economy , p. 178
  2. ^ Heinrich: Critique of Political Economy , p. 174