{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","title":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781608461042","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","id":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","uuid":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","title":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","normalized_title":"zombiecapitalismglobalcrisisandtherelevanceofmarx","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781608461042","isbns":["9781608461042"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":426,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Zombie%20Capitalism%20Global%20Crisis%20and%20the%20Relevance%20of%20Marx","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/search"},"page":{"printed_page":72,"pdf_page":72,"physical_index":72,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"edb374cb819d9b349ec98050c65d11ee9745948621893e9d4e6e1d143c028528"},"chapter":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","content":"Marx's own writings provide a simple answer to any such argument: that the first capitalist to invest in a new technology gets a competitive advantage over his fellow capitalists which enables him to gain a surplus profit, but that this surplus will not last once the new techniques are generalised.\n\nWhat the capitalist gets in money terms when he sells his goods depends upon the average amount of socially necessary labour contained in them. If he introduces a new, more productive, technique, but no other capitalists do so, he is producing goods worth the same amount of socially necessary labour as before, but with less expenditure on real concrete labour power. His profits rise.40 But once all capitalists have introduced these techniques, the value of the goods falls until it corresponds to the average amount of labour needed to produce them under the new techniques. The additional profit disappears-and if more means of production are used to get access to the new techniques, the rate of profit falls.41\n\nThe implications of Marx's argument are far reaching. The very success of capitalism at accumulating leads to problems for further accumulation. Eventually the competitive drive of capitalists to keep ahead of other capitalists results in a massive scale of new investment which cannot be sustained by the rate of profit. If some capitalists are to make an adequate profit it can only be at the expense of other capitalists who are driven out of business. The drive to accumulate leads inevitably to crises. And the greater the scale of past accumulation, the deeper the crises will be.\n\nThe countervailing tendencies\n\nMarx's theory, it should be stressed, is an abstract account of the most general trends in the capitalist system. You cannot draw from it immediate conclusions about the concrete behaviour of the economy at any individual point in space and time. You have first to look at how the general trends interact with a range of other factors. Marx himself was fully aware of this, and built into his account what he called \"countervailing tendencies\". Two are of central importance.\n\nFirst, there is increasing the rate of exploitation. If each worker contributes more surplus value this will counteract the fact that there are fewer workers per unit of investment. The increased exploitation could result from increasing the length of the working day (Marx's \"absolute surplus value\" ), cutting real wages, increasing the physical intensity of labour or a fall in the cost of providing workers with a livelihood as a result of increased productivity. In this case the capitalist could increase the proportion of each individual worker's labour that went into surplus value, even if the worker's living standard was not reduced. Such an increase in the rate of exploitation could counteract some of the downward pressures on the rate of profit: the total number of workers might not grow as fast as total investment, but each worker would produce more surplus value even if he or she did not suffer a wage cut or have to work any harder.\n\n72\n\nUnderstanding the System: Marx and Beyond","previous_page":71,"next_page":73}