In chapter XV part III volume III of "Capital" Marx studied "Unraveling the Internal Contradictions" of "The Law of the Falling Tendency of the Rate of Profit". In this study he reached many important conclusions about the connection between this law and crises. But these conclusions have not necessarily been comprehended. The theme of this paper is to study for what reasons Marx regarded this law as one of the most important causes of crises. In the study of the connection between this law and crises, we must comprehend the influences of this law on the development of the process of accumulation of capital. A fall of the rate of profit brings forth the capitals which cannot compensate it by the mass of profit, thus it compels these capitals to competitive struggle to compensate it. This competitive struggle causes the rise in wages and the glut of markets. A fall in the rate of profit checks the formation of new independent capitals and brings forth "plethora of capital", so lowers the rate of accumulation of capital on the one hand, and pushes the mass of the small divided capitals into speculation, fraudulant credit etc. on the other hand. This law is composed of many moments which affect the rate and the mass of profit in opposite ways. These moments are the fall in the rate of profit and the increase in its mass, the relative decrease of the working population compared with invested capital and the increase of the absolute number of them, the increase of the constant capital and the cheapening of its elements etc. These agencies operate simultaneously and antagonistically in the process of accumulation of capital. In this chapter crises are also regarded as the periodic vent of the conflict of these antagonistic agencies. Therefore so-called "the absolute overproduction of capital" should be comprehended as the effects of these influences of the fall of the rate of profit on the process of accumulation of capital.

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In 1860s and 70s, when the primitive accumulation was intensively carried out on the government's initiative, modern iron producing and processing industries began to develop in Russia. In this period the industry, which produced locomotives, rolling stocks and rails for railroad, was chiefly developed by the government. The development of the industry depended on the government's support, railroad construction and the import of means of production. But in the early 80s, when the public finance and the balance of payments had a vast deficit, the dependence came to be impossible. Then the iron producing and processing industries had to change the contents of products, from products for railroad to ones for private market. The reason why the change was possible was that in those days the great industry was established in light industries and some industries began to develop in heavy industries. While this process of change meant that the main industries in the iron producing and processing industries, iron and steel industry and the industry which produced machines and apparatus for private market, were being formed. For that reason that change was "Structural Change". Under these circumstances the structure of reproduction, of which the iron producing and processing industries were the nucleus, was basicly formed. Namely Russian capitalism was established. The establishment changed the roles of government and railroad. Namely in 1880s the emphasis of industrial administration shifted from support to some heavy industries to protective tariff policy. Railroad gave its top seat in the course of development of the capitalism. But the iron producing and processing industries conceived distortion. The distortion meant the disproportional development of iron and steel industry and the undergrouth of production of precision machines. The manner of development of Russian capitalism and the international relations of Russia caused the distortion. So the wider capitalism developed, the graver the distortion became.

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The German Revolution of 1918-19 can be regarded as a battle-field, in which three different conceptions of economic policy, i.e. the socialization, the economic liberalism and the collective economy, contended for a new social and economic order of the Weimar Republic. In this paper I have sought to clarify the essential features of the scheme of the collective economy by analyzing the confrontation of these three economic policies in the German Revolution. The scheme of the collective economy, devised by W. Rathenau and W. v. Mollendorff during the First World War and carried out vainly by the Imperial Minister of Economy R. Wissell in the period of the German Revolution, was a comprehensive programme concerning the reorganization of a highly industrialized and organised capitalist economy. The idea of this scheme originated in the German war economy of 1914-18 which accelerated the organising tendencies of the German capitalism and at the same time completed the integration of the German workers into the state through the trade unions. Insted of the market mechanism, the scheme of the collective economy aimed at constructing a planned economy under the control of the state, based on the joint management of the employers and the trade unions in the self-governing organs (die wirtschaftlichen Selbstverwaltungskorper). So it is obvious that the keystone of this scheme was laid on the well-functioning co-operation between the employers and the workers.

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[in Japanese]

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