THE MARXIAN CRISES THEORY

Reprinted from
Political Economy: Marxist Study Courses,
originally published in England, 1933

Other Recommended Marxist Readings on Economic Crisis
  • David Harvey. Limits to Capital. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982.
  • Paul Mattick. Economic Crisis and Crisis Theory. White Plains NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1981.
  • James O'Connor. The Meaning of Crisis. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987.

    • A. The Possibility of crises

        Marx considers the crises as an expression of all the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production :

    " All contradictions of bourgeois production collectively come into eruption in the general crises on the world market." (Marx, Theories on Surplus-value, Vol. II, Part II, P. 318.)

        Marx has, therefore, considered the crises in the many-sidedness of their modifications and manifestations. He analysed the many-sided moments which crises may evoke and has shown how the crises develop in all spheres and forms of capitalist economy.

    (a) THE POSSIBILITY OF CRISES AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE CONTRADICTION IN COMMODITIES

        Marx finds the general possibility of crises in the fact that the products are produced as commodities.

    " In the case of direct barter production on the part of the producer is mainly directed towards the satisfaction of his own needs or, with the somewhat wider development of the division of labour, the needs of co-producers known to him. It is only the excess which is exchanged as commodities and whether the excess is exchanged or not, is not essential. In the case of commodity production the conversion of the product into money, the sale, is a conditio sine qua non (absolute condition,-Editor). Direct production for one's own needs falls to the ground. With the non-sale we get the crises.", (Marx, Theories of Surplus-value, Vol. II, Part 11, 281.)

        In so far as society produces the products as commodities, i.e., in so far as we have before us a commodity economy, the possibility of crises are already contained in the very commodity nature of the society.

       Direct barter is the earliest stage of exchange where the chief mass of the products are manufactured for direct needs and only an excess of them appears as commodities which are directly exchanged against other commodities.

       For every commodity must here be exchanged for money. The inherent antagonism of use value and value contained in the commodity finds its expression in the separation of the