This paper analyzes the structure of the Japanese economy as an "economic superpower" dependent on exports and foreign demand, in terms of the reproduction schema of Marxian theory. The foundations of Japan's post-war economy were established during the period of rapid economic growth, based on an accumulation process led by "Department I" production, especially the production of capital goods and raw materials. In the mid-1970's, global recession forced Japanese industry to adjust to new circumstances, and Japanese companies gained greater international competitiveness, particularly in the automotive and electric sectors and others related to the machine industries. This was due to the adoption of "slim management" and the introduction of micro-electronics technologies. "Slim management" reduced employment and capital investment, increasing labor intensity and efficiency in order to build up capital more effectively. The significance of "slim management" for Japan's reproduction structure was that it not only realized sharp production increases and greater international competitiveness but also brought about a contraction of domestic demand in both investment and consumption. As a result, the Japanese economy became dependent on exports. Domestic demand grew more than exports from the latter 1980's into the 1990's, but the Japanese economy again became more deeply dependent on foreign demand from the late 1990's on. In the 2000's, foreign demand drove an increase in domestic output by the automotive, industrial machinery, metal products, and chemical products industries, despite the concurrent expansion of Japanese companies' electrical equipment factories elsewhere in Asia. Domestic demand showed less growth than domestic output during this period, much as it did in the second half of the 1970s, because Japanese companies in the leading industries were maintaining and strengthening their competitiveness by employing more non-regular workers (including dispatched workers, contract workers, part-time workers and others) than regular employees. The result has been the contraction of the domestic economy, because the "contradictions between production and consumption" in the domestic economy have inevitably widened in the face of ever-harsher competitive conditions worldwide. This analysis shows that as an "economic superpower" dependent on exports and foreign demand, Japan's economy has been founded on domestic wage differentials and on poverty and has brought about a condition of overproduction in the world economy.

抄録全体を表示

The method of using model analysis in discussing a crisis was presented by Okishio (1976). He insisted that crisis theory is part of the assumption of Marx's schema of reproduction (Say's identity), and introduced independent investment function. Nagashima price adjustment model (1994), (2006) examined in this paper is one of the models in which the investment function is introduced. This model has already been examined by Ishikura (2007) and Nakatani (2007). However, both Ishikura (2007)and Nakatani (2007) evaluate the Nagashima model from the growth theory viewpoint. In this paper, I reexamine the character of the model from a crisis theory view. The purpose of the model concerned was to set up the system including crisis by getting rid of Marx's schema of reproduction, and introducing the investment function. Nevertheless, it is proven in this paper that the Nagashima model does not contain the crisis (supply-demand imbalance). In his model disequilibrium in goods market is dissolved without fail because demand side is smoothly adjusted according to the supply. In a word, "quasi-Say's law (Say's equity)" exists. This becomes clear by investigating the determination mechanism of the temporary equilibrium in his model. First§the Two-secter model of Nagashima is converted into single sector, holding its essential characters. Second, by using this one-secter model, the mechanism achievement of temporary equilibrium is clarified. As a result, it can be shown that the supply-demand imbalance can not be discussed in his model. Third, the structural aspect of the Nagashima model is made clearer through the comparison with Okishio operation rates model. And the equilibrium that Nagashima states (constant price) is examined. Finally, after the wage function is simplified, a general solution of the model is derived. Consequently, a general character of the model can be investigated. However, regarding this general solution it must be noted that the long-term continuation condition is shown after the supply-demand imbalance is removed.

抄録全体を表示

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.

抄録全体を表示

本稿の課題は本源的蓄積とは何かという問いに対して回答を与えようというものである．その際に導きの糸となったのは，望月教授の「『資本制的生産に先行する諸形態』を本源的蓄積論の序説として読まなくてはならない」，という指摘である．この指摘を敷衍することによって，本源的蓄積を，共同体の「生存原理」が否定される歴史過程として捉える視点が導きだされることになる．ここで「生存原理」とは，「社会の経済活動の目的は，その構成員の生存と世代をこえたその再生産を保障することにある」ということである．先資本制的な共同体はこの「生存原理」に基づいて編成されていた社会であるが，その解体である本源的蓄積は，２つの過程から成る．先ず，本源的蓄積の開始期では，共有地が横奪される．そして，「資本の有機的構成高度化とそのことによる相対的過剰人口創出を通じた労働力供給メカニズムの確立」＝「資本のもとへの労働の実質的包摂」によって本源的蓄積は最終的に完成する．

抄録全体を表示

The advanced capitalist countries in the world economy commonly underwent a substantial transition in the early 1980s, in which their profit rates, after suffering from a tendency toward long-term decline, began to pick up again. We had entered the era of neo-liberalism. Their profit rates, with the exception of that in Japan, gradually and steadily strengthened the rising tendency toward the so-called 'Information Technology' bubble in the second half of the 1990s. The present paper at first in the Introduction categorizes surplus capital into the three concepts: i.e., absolute, relative, and absolute and relative surplus capital. Absolute surplus capital takes place in the period of an economic crisis and depression; relative surplus capital manifests itself, due to a series of absolute surplus capital, as the long-term declining tendency of profit rate; and absolute and relative surplus capital, combining the former two, takes a form of an expansion of fictitious capital. Corresponding to these forms of domestic surplus capital, international surplus capital also takes three forms and manifests itself as temporary trade surplus, a long-term accumulation of trade surplus and net capital export, and international circulation of securities capital, respectively (Section II). Section I empirically deals with the historic turning point in 1981 of the US capitalism, in which its long-term declining tendency of profit rate, beginning in 1965, was drastically turned over owing to the peak-out of the improvement of real wage rate. The end of the relative surplus of industrial capital also marked the beginning of the relative surplus of loan capital in 1981, when the unprecedented high interest rate policy of FRB began to ease. The combination of these opposite forms of surplus capital contributed to an expansion of fictitious capital and an economic bubble after the second half of the 1980s. Section III empirically discusses the relationship between trade imbalance and international surplus capital, and analyses its historical development in US, Japan and Germany by introducing a new concept of 'private surplus savings', defined as trade balance minus fiscal balance. Section IV describes the historical development of international surplus capital in three stages: i.e., bank loan in the 1970s, which led to the dramatic debt crisis of developing countries after 1982 onward; bond investment in the 1980s, which was strongly facilitated by the so-called 'twin deficit' of the US economy, being financed by a massive inflow of foreign capital into the Treasury securities; and finally, equity investment after the middle of the 1990s. International surplus capital established its final and complete form in equity capital with the help of some historical events such as the 'Big Bang' in the UK in 1986 and the reunification of Germany in 1990. It is the complete form in the sense that it combines bank loan and bond investment as its complementary elements. It has been globally circulating among advanced capitalist countries, developing countries, 'emerging markets', and 'economies in transition'. It is expected, however, to dissolve sooner or later thanks to the enormous accumulation of US international debt, which is not to be sustainable forever due to ever increasing leakage of income deficit in US international balance of payments. The world economy after the establishment of global securities capital would be more and more vulnerable to the fluctuation in investors' expectations regarding capital gains and losses. The fear is that the stock value of equity capital could easily shrink catastrophically without even a small amount of capital outflow. A massive capital flight follows a collapse of stock value, depending on investors' moody expectations. A strict foreign exchange control or proactive monetary policy could not effectively prevent that from taking place.

抄録全体を表示

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.

抄録全体を表示