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Contribution to Book
Reproduction and Crisis in Capitalist Economies
The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx (2019)
  • Deepankar Basu
Abstract
An economic crisis in capitalism is a deep and prolonged interruption of the economy-wide circuit of capital. Crises emerge from within the logic of capitalism’s operation, and are manifestations of the inherently contradictory process of capital accumulation. The Marxist tradition conceptualizes two types of crisis tendencies in capitalism: a crisis of deficient surplus value and a crisis of excess surplus value. Two mechanisms that become important in crises of deficient surplus value are the rising organic composition of capital and the profit squeeze: two mechanisms that are salient in crises of excess surplus value are problems of insufficient aggregate demand and increased financial fragility. This chapter offers a synthetic and synoptic account of the Marxist literature on capitalist crisis.
Keywords
  • capitalism,
  • crisis,
  • rising organic composition of capital,
  • profit squeeze,
  • underconsumption,
  • financial fragility
Disciplines
Publication Date
June, 2019
DOI
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190695545.013.14
Citation Information
Deepankar Basu. "Reproduction and Crisis in Capitalist Economies" The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx (2019)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/deepankar_dasu/36/