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The Implication for Socialism of Marx's Theory of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Elias L. Khalil
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Extract

It is clear from the enormous literature on the subject that Karl Marx believed that his law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is applicable only to the capitalist mode of production. Is there, however, really anything in the law which confines it specifically to capitalist production? This is an important question which is not asked in an explicit manner in the literature on Marx's economics. His most important law or tendency about the internal contradictions of capitalist production might turn out to be a characteristic of production per se—including socialist production in its ideal form.

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Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , Fall 1994 , pp. 292 - 309
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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