再生産論体系における利潤論の位置 : 『資本論』第3巻第3篇第15章をめぐって

抄録

This paper aims to make clear the significance for the theory of crisis of "Exposition of the Internal Contradictions of the Law" (chapter XV part III volume III of "Capital"). As is generally known, chapter XV consists of four section. However, until now many people have tryed to construct their respective theories of crisis by means of the fragmentary citation without caring their internal connection. Under the circumstances this paper has concentrated on the elucidation of the theoretical of connection capter XV. In the first section of chapter XV Marx says: The creation of surplus-value makes up the first act of the capitalist process of production, and in the second act of the process the entire mass of commodities including surplus-value must be sold. However, the conditions of direct exploitation, and those of realizing it, are not identical. They diverge not only in place and time, but also logically. The above-mentioned connection between the first act and the second act corresponds to that between volume I and II of "Capital". Therefore, a synthesis of the process of production and circulation includes the immanent contradiction concerning the realization of surplus-value, and the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall moves on the basis of such synthesis. In the second section the connection between the law and the immanent contradiction elucidated in the first section comes into question. Namely, though the law which has manysided contents may be summarized in the emulation between the decrease in the rate of profit and the increase in the absolute mass of profit, compensation of a fall in the rate of profit by a rise in the mass of profit cannot ignore the question concerning the realization of multitudes of commodities. However, the consumption under capitalism is limited by the pauperization of the great mass of producers, and a rift must continually ensue between the limited dimensions of consumption and a production which forever tends to exceed this immanent barrier. The inevitability of periodical crises is prescribed in this manner. The minimum capital required by an individual capitalist for the productive employment of labour rises through such periodical crises. The compensation of a fall in the rate of profit by a rise in the mass of profit applies only to the big, firmly placed capitalists that could accomplish the increasing concentration corresponding the rise in the minimum capital. On the contrary, for the mass of small dispersed capitals the fall in the rate of profit is not compensated through the mass of profit. This plethora of capital is accompanied by more or less considerable relative over-population. It is no contradiction at all under capitalism that there should be an excess of capital simultaneously with a. growing surplus of population. Thus in the third section Marx makes clear the consequence of the long-run movement of capitalist production.