| That's what https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Harman would say. Harman wrote a number of great books on the subject and was buried next to Marx in London. Harman himself would admit, though, the the problem of "the tendency of the rate of profit to decline" isn't completely understood or even established (e.g. the basic 'science of civilization' answer is that 'everything fluctuates'.) I don't buy the idea of "dead" labor though in that capital investment does wear out. You could get a certain bit of infrastructure with 100 person-years or 10 person-years of effort with more or less bungling and the value is the same. You can't just add up the inputs, at the very least you have to apply a discount rate. I don't think that changes the thesis, because the problem that capitalist has is that he has to put more capital in over time to be competitive and to scale. Just like a worker would resent working harder and longer to get paid the same, the capitalist resents having to make larger capital investments to get the same return. |