Hegel himself withdrew from the
revolutionary implications of his conception of truth, whereas Marx follows the
argument through to the end in his Theses on Feuerbach. In Capital, however, he is more ambivalent. For, while he retains the
notion of capital as irrational, topsy-turvy, and
so on, his whole method is aimed at establishing not the truth of his thinking,
but rather its correctness. For, if, as he says, capital ‘must form the starting
point as well as the finishing point,’ then clearly what he is trying to
establish is a correct conception of
capitalism. If he is trying to establish truth,
he cannot end up with capital, which is an ‘untrue content’. And,
yet, 
having
made capital his starting point, logic drives him to make it the finishing
point too. But this result conflicts with his whole outlook and intention,
which was, after all, to show the necessary downfall of capitalism. To resolve
the conflict dialectically would mean a restructuring of his entire work and
the adoption of a point of departure which would enable him to end up not with
capital but with a critique of capital. For some
reason, Marx did not do this. Instead, he attempted to
demonstrate the necessary breakdown of capitalism while retaining his original framework. By so doing, he tied not
only himself but also subsequent generations of Marxists into the most
grotesque knots.
II
The Breakdown of Breakdown Theory
The theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to
fall is the means by which it is attempted to prove the necessary breakdown of
capitalism independently of the agency of the proletariat. Marx sets out ‘The
Law as Such’ in all its classic simplicity: the increasing productivity of
labour under capitalism, which is expressed directly in a growing technical
composition of capital, implies also a growth (although not in the same
proportion) of the value of constant capital in relation to the value of
variable capital. Assuming that the rate of surplus-value remains constant, this
increase in the organic composition of capital expresses itself in a falling
rate of profit. This tendency is characteristic not only of individual
capitals, but also of social capital as a whole. He illustrates it by the
following series:[22]
|
c
|
v
|
s
|
p1
|
|
50
|
100
|
100
|
100/150=66.67%
|
|
100
|
100
|
100
|
100/200=50%
|
|
200
|
100
|
100
|
100/300=33.33%
|
|
300
|
100
|
100
|
100/400=25%
|
|
400
|
100
|
100
|
100/500=20%
|
(N.B. This table and subsequent ones clearly do not
refer to consecutive cycles of accumulation but
to a long-term tendency. In the short term, the rate of profit may rise, fall
or remain stagnant – that is irrelevant. The question at issue is its long-term
epochal tendency.)
Later, Marx goes on to explain that the
fall does not manifest itself in an absolute form but only as a tendency due to
the operation of counteracting influences. Among these he lists: The increase
in the rate of surplus-value; cheapening of the elements of constant capital;
and depreciation of existing capital. These, together with other counteracting
influences, stem the decline in the rate of profit, but cannot abolish it
altogether.
Before examining this argument and that of
others who have attempted to improve on it, a few points of clarification are
necessary.
The tendency is seen to be the result of
the interaction of the ‘law as 
such’
and the ‘counteracting influences’. It is assumed, then, that the rising
organic composition of capital (from which is derived the tendency of the rate
of profit to fall) is somehow primary, while the ‘counteracting
influences’ are secondary or accidental. But see how Marx himself
refers to the ‘counteracting influences’ listed above.
1. In relation to the cheapening of the elements of
constant capital and the depreciation of existing capital:
In short, the same development which
increases the mass of the constant capital in relation to the variable reduces
the value of its elements as a result of the increased productivity of labour,
and therefore prevents the value of constant capital, although it continually
increases, from increasing at the same rate as its material volume, i.e. the
material volume of the means of production set in motion 
by the same amount of labour power. In
isolated cases the mass of the elements of constant capital may even increase, while
its value remains the same or falls. The foregoing is bound up with the
depreciation of existing capital (that is, of its material elements), which
occurs with the development of industry.[23]
Two points are made here. Firstly, that the increasing
technical composition of capital and the cheapening of constant capital (both
newly created and already existing) are both
expressions of the same process,
namely the increasing productivity of labour. There is no question of one being
primary and the other being secondary.
The second point is even more significant.
It is that changes in the value composition of capital are a resultant of the rising technical composition
and declining value of means of production, and, depending on their relation to
each other, the value composition may rise, decline or remain constant. This
can be shown quite simply. Suppose the value composition of capital is initially
1, i.e. c=100 and v=100 (case 1). Assume, then,
that productivity doubles, so that the same number of workers handles twice as
much means of production. If productivity has also doubled in the production of means of production, the value of
each unit would have fallen to half its initial value; the value of the new
total mass would be the same as that of the initial mass. Thus 
if
the value of labour-power has remained constant (and this is the assumption
when a constant rate of surplus-value is assumed), the value composition will
be the same as before (case 2). If, however, the productivity of labour remains
constant in the production of means of production, then not only its mass but
its value too would have doubled, and the value composition would have risen to
2 (case 3). Conversely, if productivity quadruples in the production of means
of production, its mass would be double but its value only half as much as
before, and the value composition would fall to ½ (case 4).
|
|
means
of production
|
means of production
|
labour-power
|
labour-power
|
value
composition
|
|
|
mass
|
value
|
mass
|
value
|
|
|
case l
|
100
|
100
|
100
|
100
|
1
|
|
case 2
|
200
|
100
|
100
|
100
|
1
|
|
case 3
|
200
|
200
|
100
|
100
|
2
|
|
case 4
|
200
|
50
|
100
|
100
|
½
|
N.B. Throughout we have referred only to the value
composition and not to the organic composition. This is in order to avoid
quibbling over the definition of ‘organic composition’, which is
unnecessary since, however rigorously you try to define ‘organic composition’,
it is the value composition that determines the rate of profit. E.g., assuming
a uniform 100% rate of surplus-value, the rates of profit in the cases above
would be as follows:
Rate
of profit
case 1 100/200 = 50%
case
2 100/200
= 50%
case
3 100/300 = 33.3%
case
4 100/150 = 66.67%
2. In relation to the rising rate of surplus-value,
i.e. the increase in surplus labour in
relation to necessary labour, Marx writes,
The development of the social
productiveness of labour is manifested in two ways: first, in the magnitude of
the already produced productive forces…, secondly, in the relatively small
quantity of living labour required for the reproduction and self-expansion of a
given capital… In relation to employed labour-power the development of productivity again
reveals itself in two ways:
first, in the increase of surplus-labour, secondly, in
the decrease of the quantity of labour-power… The two movements not only go hand in hand, but
mutually influence one another and are phenomena in which the same law
expresses itself.[24]
Thus, the increase of means of production in relation 
to
labour-power goes together with an increase of surplus labour in relation to
necessary labour; i.e. a rising technical composition of capital and the
increasing rate of surplus-value are phenomena in which the same law (the development of the social
productiveness of labour) manifests itself. And, again, ‘the increasing productivity
of labour is accompanied by a cheapening of the worker, and it is therefore
accompanied by a higher rate of surplus value even when real wages are rising.
The latter never rise in proportion to the productivity of labour.’[25]
Here, again, there is no suggestion that the rising technical and value
composition of capital is primary while the rising rate of surplus value is
secondary; both are expressions of
the same process. It is easy to see
why. Going back to case 1, we would have a value composition of 1 and a rate of
surplus-value of 100%, i.e. the working day would be equally divided between
necessary and surplus labour. If we then
shift to case 2, (i.e. an all-round doubling of productivity), we find that
although all the values remain the same, use-values
have doubled. In other
words, the workers will be living twice as well as before if the
rate of surplus-value remains constant. But this is
hardly likely, given that ‘the constant tendency of capital is to force the
cost of labour back
towards … absolute zero.’[26]
On the contrary, we would expect capital to attempt to keep real wages at
the same minimum level, and since we are now abstracting from working-class
militancy, we will assume that they succeed. But, at the higher productivity of
labour, it requires only ¼ of the working day to produce what was previously
produced in ½. Thus, ¾ can be converted into surplus labour-time. The new v
would be only 50, and the new s 150. The rate of surplus-value would have risen
from 100% to 300% without any decline in living standards or lengthening of the working day:
|
|
c
|
v
|
s
|
c/v
|
s/v
|
|
case 1
|
100
|
100
|
100
|
1
|
100%
|
|
case 2
|
100
|
50
|
150
|
2
|
300%
|
(N.B. In order to ‘avoid dealing with all
relations when discussing each particular relation’ it is important,
as Marx pointed out, to assume throughout the argument that wages remain ‘at
their lowest level’, i.e. at the physiological minimum. This does not mean that the value of labour-power remains constant.
On the contrary, a constant value of labour-power would mean that the workers
were reaping all the benefits of the increased social productivity of labour,
which, in turn, implies fantastic combativity on their part. This is to
introduce an extraneous element into the argument, which seeks to demonstrate
the necessary breakdown of capitalism independently of the action of the
working class. Hence, to be rigorous, we must assume that the conditions of
exploitation – the standard of living, the length of the working day and the
intensity of labour – do not improve but remain the same. In value terms, as Marx pointed out, this
implies a continuous ‘cheapening of the worker’, a continuous decline of the
value of labour-power as a consequence of the rising social productivity of
labour.)
Now, to come back to Marx’s schema. He
starts off with 50c and 100v. In the next round, we find 100c and 100v. Two
things could have happened. It 
could
be that productivity in this production process has doubled whereas in the
production of means of production it has stagnated. Or, whatever change of
productivity there has been here, there has been only half that increase
in the production of means of production. For example,
if productivity here has quadrupled (i.e. each worker handles four times as
much means of production as before), the value
of the increased quantity of means of production
has only doubled, because each unit contains only half as much socially-necessary
labour-time as before due to a doubling of productivity in that department of
production.
Going down the line, we find the same
thing happening all the way. Either productivity in the production of means of
production is stagnating, or it is rising at exactly half the rate at which
productivity here (presumably the department producing means of subsistence) is
rising.
There are two possible ways of explaining
this:
1)
In every
process of production, the productivity of labour rises faster than in the processes
of production producing its means of production. Thus, in each case ‘the
individual commodity is cheapened; the value-portion embodying newly posited
labour falls faster than the portion representing constant capital.’[27]
E.g., productivity in weaving must increase faster than in spinning and the
manufacture of looms, and so on going backwards, so that over time each unit of
cloth embodies a larger and larger proportion of constant capital. One wonders
what happens to commodities which enter into each others’ processes of production,
e.g. steel and its machinery. Productivity in steel-making
would have to increase faster than in steel-making machinery so that each unit
of steel should contain a progressively larger proportion of constant capital;
at the same time, productivity in steel-making machinery would have to increase
faster than productivity in steel-making so that each unit of machinery should
contain a progressively larger proportion of constant capital. It is fairly
obvious why this explanation is not often put forward. It is anyway irrelevant,
because Marx’s schema deals – has to
deal – with social averages, and not with individual commodities.
2)
Alternatively, it could be the case that
in society as a whole, the productivity of labour increases faster in
department II (producing means of subsistence) than in department I (producing
means of production), so that the value of labour-power falls faster than the
value of means of production even without any increase in the rate of surplus-value.
This appears to be the argument adopted by Marx and most breakdown theorists
(‘appears’ because the assumption is never made explicit). He writes
that
the tool is not simply replaced by a
single machine, but by a whole system, and the tools which perhaps played the
major part previously... are now assembled in thousands. Each individual
machine confronting the worker is in itself a colossal assembly of instruments
which he formerly used singly,
e.g., 1,800 spindles instead
of one. But, in addition, the machine contains elements which the old
instruments did not have. Despite the cheapening of individual elements, the price of the aggregate
increases enormously and the productivity consists in the continuous expansion
of machinery.[28]
That increases in productivity involve a continuous
expansion of machinery is indisputable. What is less obvious is why this whole
complex, even if it contains ‘elements’ which the old instruments did not have,
should embody more socially necessary labour-time than the 1,800 spindles when
they were made by hand. On the contrary, the enormous increase in the social
productivity of labour that has taken place in the meantime suggests that in
fact less socially-necessary
labour-time could well be embodied in the new machine, extra ‘elements’ included.
That the increase in productivity does not at all necessarily imply an increase
in value of the instrument
is further strengthened by Marx’s own comment that ‘one
element – the increasing speed of machinery – increases productivity enormously
but does not affect the value of the machinery itself in any way.’[29]
(I.e. on one new 
spindle,
cheaper than an old one, a worker could spin as
much as could be spun on several old ones in the same time.)
The
argument about raw materials is equally unconvincing. ‘It is obvious
that the quantity of raw material must increase proportionally with the
productivity of labour’ (this is also indisputable).
But ‘one may ask with regard to raw material: If, for example, productivity in
spinning increases ten-fold, that is, a single worker spins as much as ten did
previously, why should not one Negro produce ten times as much cotton as ten’
(presumably Marx means ‘one’, otherwise productivity
would have to rise 100-fold, not 10-fold) ‘did previously, that is,
why should the value ratio not remain
the same?’ (Why not indeed, especially if that ‘Negro’ is now operating a
cotton-picking machine?) ‘To this it would be quite easy to answer
that some kinds of raw materials, such as wool, silk, leather, are produced by
animal organic processes, while cotton, linen, etc. are produced by vegetable organic processes and capitalist
production has not yet succeeded, and never will succeed in mastering these
processes in the same way as it has mastered purely mechanical or inorganical
chemical processes.’ (As though, in these cases, increasing the productivity of
human labour means speeding up organic processes!) ‘Raw materials
such as skins, etc., and other animal products become dearer partly because the
insipid law of rent increases the value of these products as civilisation
advances.’ (Did not Ricardo argue in the same way?) ‘As far as coal
and metal (wood) are concerned, they become much cheaper with the advance of
production; this will however become more difficult as mines are exhausted,
etc.’[30]
Are we to conclude that it is the exhaustion of mines that will bring about a
fall in the rate of profit and thus the downfall of capitalism?
Their empirical dubiousness apart, what kind of arguments are these?
When Ricardo tried to explain the fall in the
rate of profit by the increasing value of labour-power resulting from the
declining productivity of labour in agriculture, Marx had a good laugh at him:
‘Ricardo assumes that the productive force of labour decreases in
agriculture, although it grows in industry, with the accumulation of capital.
He flees from economics to seek refuge in organic chemistry.’[31]
But
now, surely, the laugh is against Marx. For in the foregoing arguments, does he
not flee from economics to seek refuge in engineering on the one hand, organic
chemistry on the other? What is even more astonishing is that most Marxists
simply accept this argument and even some of those who have attempted to
improve on Marx’s own argument have swallowed this part of it totally uncritically. A good example is Mario Cogoy,
who tries to correct the assumption that the rate of surplus-value remains
constant and to show that the rate of profit falls even with a rising rate of
surplus-value. His schema is as follows:[32]
|
|
c
|
v
|
s
|
|
Period0
|
100
|
100
|
100
|
|
Period 1
|
120
|
90
|
110
|
|
Period 2
|
144
|
81
|
119
|
|
Period 3
|
172.8
|
72.9
|
127.1
|
At first sight, this looks good. The rate of surplus-value
rises constantly, presumably due to an increase in the productivity of labour.
Assuming that the standard of life and working hours remain constant, as well
as the number of workers (i.e. v represents the same quantity of use-values all
along), we conclude that from one period to the next, value is falling and
therefore productivity is increasing by 10%. In each period, therefore, the
workers must be handling 10% more means of production than in the previous
period – e.g. in period 1, they are handling 110% as much means of production
as in period 0, and so on. The value
of those means of production, however, has gone up by more, by 20%. In other
words, the value of each unit of means of production has increased, and this goes on happening all the time. It seems that
Cogoy turns Ricardo on his head and 
assumes
that the productive force of labour decreases
in industry, although 
it
grows in agriculture, with the accumulation of capital. On balance, Ricardo’s argument
seems somewhat more convincing.
As against Ricardo, Marx and their uncritical
followers on this particular point, it is necessary to maintain that when
dealing with social capital and the social productivity of labour, we must
stick to a socially average rate of increase of the productivity of labour.
When this corrective is made to Marx’s
schema, it is found that at each stage although productivity is doubling – i.e.
the same number of workers is handling double the quantity of means of
production – the value of this double quantity remains the same as the initial
value:
|
c
|
v
|
s
|
p¹
|
|
50
|
100
|
100
|
100/150=66.67%
|
|
50
|
100
|
100
|
100/150=66.67%
|
|
50
|
100
|
100
|
100/150=66.67%
|
|
50
|
100
|
100
|
100/150=66.67%
|
|
50
|
100
|
100
|
100/150=66.67%
|
At the end of the series, workers are handling eight
times as much means of production as at the start, yet there has been no change
in the value composition. What is wrong?
Something
is very wrong. At the end of the series v and s represent eight times as much use-values as at the start, i.e. the
workers’ living standards have improved by 800%.
They are reaping all the benefits of increased productivity. Naturally, with
such massive real wage increases even the absolute mass of surplus-value does
not rise. In fact, we have already slightly improved on Marx’s example. Here, a
capital of constant value produces a constant surplus-value. In his example,
capital value increases enormously
while the absolute quantity of surplus-value remains the same. Such benevolence
surely contradicts the inner nature of capital.
What
this shows is that, once you abandon the dogma of declining/stagnating/more
slowly rising productivity in department I, you discover that the rising value
composition of capital and the rising rate of surplus-value are inextricably
linked. (They are, after all, ‘phenomena in which the same law expresses
itself’.) Abolish one, as Marx has done, and you abolish the other. It follows
that the tendency of the rate of profit to fall can be discovered only from
their combined effect on it.
So, now we come to Marx’s second line of
argument: namely, that although the rising organic composition of capital is
always accompanied by a rising rate of surplus-value and they have opposite
effects on the rate of profit, it is the organic composition that wins out in
the long run, so that the rate of profit falls. This is because the extent to
which the rate of surplus-value can be increased is limited by the length of
the working day. He clinches the matter by giving the following argument: ‘Two
labourers, each working twelve hours daily, cannot produce the same mass of
surplus value as 24 who work only 2 hours, even if they could live on air and
hence did not have to work for themselves at all. In this respect, then, the
compensation for the reduced number of labourers by intensifying the degree of
exploitation has certain insurmountable limits.’[33] In the first place, it must
be pointed out that this is already a capital in deep crisis, i.e. one which is
not accumulating, since the workforce has declined drastically whereas ‘accumulation
reproduces the capital-relation on an
expanded scale, with more capitalists, or bigger capitalists, at one pole, and more
wage-labourers at the other pole.’[34]
It is not difficult to agree that a capital which cut its labour-force by 11/12
would be in bad trouble, but what does this prove? Certainly not that the rate
of surplus-value cannot rise indefinitely, nor that this cannot offset the
increase in value composition. Let us go back to our correction of Marx’s schema,
and this time stick to Marx’s own condition that wages remain at their lowest
level, i.e. the standard of life does not rise (or fall). There would then be a
constant redivision of the working day (which likewise remains constant) whereby
necessary labour-time is reduced and surplus labour-time increases; the value
of 200 represented by s + v would be proportionately redivided:
|
|
c
|
v
|
s
|
s/v
|
s/c+v
|
|
1)
|
50
|
100
|
100
|
100%
|
66.7%
|
|
2)
|
50
|
50
|
150
|
300%
|
150%
|
|
3)
|
50
|
25
|
175
|
700%
|
233.3%
|
|
5)
|
50
|
12.5
|
187.5
|
1500%
|
300%
|
(Marx’s case 4 has been omitted because it does not
involve a doubling of productivity.)
It must be emphasised that no fall in real
wages nor extension of the working day has taken place: the huge increase in
the rate of surplus-value 
is
purely a result of increased productivity. If we were to add use-value terms
alongside value terms, the table would look like this:
|
|
Means of production
|
c
|
no.
of
workers
|
v
|
|
1)
|
50
|
50
|
100
|
100
|
|
2)
|
100
|
50
|
100
|
50
|
|
3)
|
200
|
50
|
100
|
25
|
|
5)
|
400
|
50
|
100
|
12.5
|
One last correction remains to be made. The example, as
it stands, involves no accumulation; on the contrary, capital value
is declining due to the capital ‘set free’ by the fall in the value of labour-power.
Let us assume that this capital which is released as well as 50% of the
previously produced surplus-value
is used to expand production at the new technical and value composition. Since
productivity changes are the same as before, the rates of surplus-value and
profit remain the same; the only difference is that the absolute amounts of
surplus-value and capital expand. We would then have a schema like this:
|
|
c
|
v
|
s
|
s/v
|
s/c+v
|
|
1
|
50
|
100
|
100
|
100%
|
66.7%
|
|
2
|
100
|
100
|
300
|
300%
|
150%
|
|
3
|
233.3
|
116.7
|
816.9
|
700%
|
233.3%
|
|
5
|
606.9
|
151.7
|
2275.5
|
1500%
|
300%
|
A few points to note:
1. Despite a steep rise in value
composition as well as capital value, there is no fall in the rate of profit.
Rather, the rate of profit moves in the
same direction as the rate of surplus-value, although it is always lower.
This is more
consistent with Marx’s whole framework than the notion that the rate of surplus-value
and the rate of profit move in opposite
directions (the first rising while the second falls). E.g. ‘If the rate of
surplus value is known and its magnitude given, the rate of profit expresses
nothing but what it actually is, namely a different way of measuring surplus value,
its measurement according to the value of the total capital instead of the
value of the portion of capital from which surplus value directly originates by
way of its exchange for labour.’[35]
And ‘the rate of profit expresses the rate of surplus value
always lower than it actually is.’[36]
However, the rate at which s/v rises does decrease, so that there would come a
point when it would rise scarcely at all even when productivity doubles. At
this stage, the rise in the rate of profit would be negligible. But it would not fall.
2) 
Nor is accumulation carried
out at the expense of the capitalists’ consumption-fund, so that, as Henryk Grossmann
fears, ‘the portion of surplus-value reserved for capitalist consumption (k)… can
only expand up to a definite high-point, after which it must necessarily
decline, because it is swallowed up by the portion of surplus value required
for capitalisation.’[37]
Rather, this portion grows together with the total surplus value and the
portion which is capitalised.
The basic mistake of all these writers is
the identification of v 
with
the number of workers or the use-values they consume, and the
assumption that value and use-value quantities rise or fall to the same degree.
This is evident in Marx’s example of the 24 workers reduced to 2; the reduction
in v leads him to suppose that the actual number of workers is cut. Or, in
Grossmann’s assumption that a 5% increase in working population must involve an increase in v, while a ‘devaluation of labour power’ is
identified with a cut in the ‘conditions
of life’ of the working class.[38] Likewise in Rudi Schmiede’s
example: ‘Suppose, with a given social working day, the mass of
surplus-value equals half of this working day, so that the rate of surplus
value is 100% – in that case, if the total capital is doubled, then, to
maintain the same rate of profit, the mass of surplus value must likewise
double; the entire social working day must now be appropriated as
surplus labour, the workers will have to live on air – obviously a quite
unrealistic assumption.’[39]
However, in our example, between 1) and 3) the total capital more than doubles
(from 150 c+v to 350 c+v), and the rate of surplus-value increases from 100% to
700% without any cut in living standards or extension of the working day. The
spectre of workers forced to live on air is quite imaginary.
This mistake is in fact nothing but a
confusion between use-value and exchange-value. Just as the massive increase in
technical composition leads these Marxists to overestimate the rise in value composition, the decline in the
value of labour-power leads them to conclude there is a fall in living standards, or the number of workers, or both. What is
really strange is that some of them explicitly state the importance of taking
into account the use-value side of production, and yet do not actually do so.
Grossmann for example, criticises Otto Bauer for just this lapse: ‘I
shall show that Bauer’s scheme reflects and can reflect only the value side of
the reproduction process, and in this sense it cannot describe the real process
of accumulation in terms of value and use value.’[40] But then, for
some inexplicable reason, he goes on to base his entire argument on Bauer’s
defective schema, only troubling himself to extend it for some years – as though
more of a bad thing makes it into a good thing! Schmiede too. In the same work,
where he brings up the example of workers forced to live on air he writes (of
others): ‘Because they are not at all concerned with the use-value
side of production, these writers succumb to a confusion between use-value and
value production – they identify the
growing mass of use-values... with a growing mass of values... One can only
conclude that they have not grasped the most elementary lessons of the labour
theory of value.’[41]
Indeed, we might agree with that conclusion!
It turns out, then, that the theory of the
tendency of the rate of profit to fall independently of the action of the
working class is riddled with confusions and contradictions, and when these are
corrected it seems that capital, if allowed to develop according to its own
immanent laws, could very well go on for ever. No wonder that proponents of
this theory constantly provide themselves with escape clauses which suggest,
without explicitly stating it, that the countervailing influences, including periodic
crises, may indefinitely postpone the actualisation of
the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, or alternatively consign it to a
realm of pure ideality from where it has no obligation to reveal itself. For example,
Ben Fine and Laurence Harris write, ‘A more accurate name for Marx’s
theory would be “the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and of the tendency for counteracting
influences to operate”… The observable effect of the law cannot, on our interpretation,
be a simple tendency for the actual rate of profit (in value or price terms) to
fall.’[42]
This is truly a fitting conclusion to a review of the debate on the long-term
tendency of the rate of profit to fall: a conclusion which clearly reveals its
character as ‘a purely scholastic question’, that is, a ‘dispute over the
reality or non-reality 
of
thinking that is isolated from practice’. For there is no way in
which the tendency, as it has been presented by these writers, can be proved or
disproved
in practice: one can only ‘wait and see’. And even that may be useless, for, if
the law is one which never reveals itself in reality, there is no way of
showing whether or not it operates. In such a situation, belief in the law is a
matter of blind, dogmatic belief
in the ‘sacred text’ – surely
an inappropriate tribute to Marx’s work.
But does it follow that there is no
long-term tendency for the rate of profit to fall or for capitalism to break
down? Not at all. All that has been argued is that capital, if it develops according to its own immanent laws, has no inherent
tendency to break down. The problem, for capital, is that there is one element
of the capitalist production process – namely 
the
working class – which puts a spanner in the works by refusing to act according
to those laws. In opposition to the inherent tendency of capital to increase the rate of surplus-value,
every act of this insubordinate element of
production drives towards the reduction of the rate of surplus-value. And it is the actualisation
of this latter tendency that leads to the downfall of capitalism. For, if the
rate of surplus-value falls, the rate of profit falls even lower, and if it disappears,
the whole raison d’être of capitalist production vanishes. But, of course, this
tendency cannot work itself out in a linear fashion because capital constantly
pushes in the opposite direction, even converting gains of the working class
into new sources of accumulation for itself by shifting the mode of surplus-value
production.[43] Thus the question of the
breakdown of capitalism is resolved in the arena, in a
straight fight between capital and the working
class. And this time it is possible
to prove the reality of our thinking in practice, by
bringing about the
breakdown of capitalism.
Before considering the various aspects of
the fight, however, it is interesting to ask: why have so many communists up to
now clung to a theory which is so patently weak? Grossmann perhaps gives us a
clue when he asks, ‘Once the economic’ (by ‘economic’
is meant ‘independent of the action of the working class’) ‘basis
for the destruction of capitalism is given up, where is the certainty that the
proletariat, having become the decisive class, will define its goal as the
destruction of capitalism? Will it not perhaps prefer to reconcile itself with
the existing order of society? Why should the working class come out against
capitalism, when it is not only capable of an unfettered development of the
forces of production and actually develops them, but secures for it a constant
improvement in its conditions of
life and ever increasing protection through social reforms?’[44]
It seems that Grossmann, having forgotten that constant improvement in living
conditions and ever increasing protection were not exactly secured for
the working class by capitalist benevolence, falls prey to the sneaking
suspicion that under such conditions the working class cannot possibly be
revolutionary. The implication, confirmed elsewhere, is that only the most
abject misery can drive the proletariat into revolution.
Such a view is consistent with Grossmann’s
theory of breakdown. But it is more surprising to find others who reject the
breakdown theory in its catastrophic form voicing similar sentiments. For
example, Anton Pannekoek:
The workers’ movement has not
to expect a final catastrophe, but many catastrophes, political – like wars – and
economic, like the crises which repeatedly break out, sometimes irregularly,
but which, on the whole, with the growing size of capitalism, become more and
more devastating. So the illusions and tendencies to tranquillity of the
proletariat will repeatedly collapse, and sharp and deep class struggles will
break out.[45]
Or, Paul Mattick:
The functions of depression are taken over
by war and consequently by preparation for war, and, as in ordinary depression,
the profitability of capital declines as a precondition for its later rise. It
is still the mechanism underlying Marx’s theory of accumulation. But whether it
will once more succeed in creating favourable conditions for purposes of capital
accumulation is not an “economic” question but a question of social occurrences
on a national and international scale. But, then, that was true for any period
of crisis and depression, 
which always contained the possibility of
social action aimed at ending all capitalist difficulties by ending the
capitalist system.[46]
Despite their superficial optimism,
underlying these statements is a deep-going pessimism concerning the
revolutionary character of the working class. Perhaps
this pessimism inevitably develops in the
revolutionary intelligentsia at times when the working-class struggle suffers a
defeat or takes a less explicit form, and this is why some of them cling so
desperately to the belief that capitalism must
break down independently of the action of
the proletariat. For what other guarantee of the
revolution do they have? One is reminded of the image of the proletariat as
a placid donkey. The revolutionary intelligentsia walks beside it, trying
alternately to lure it with the carrot of socialism and beat it with the stick
of immiseration, but always feeling that only a good kick from behind (the
crisis or breakdown) will suffice to propel the wretched beast towards
communism.
But they need not fear. Communism is
inherent in the day-to-day struggles of the working class, even when it least
appears to be so. Whether these struggles are called ‘political’
or ‘economic’ or even if they are not commonly recognised as
struggles at all, they in one way or another, directly or indirectly,
contribute to the breakdown of capitalism. The proletariat never stops digging
that grave, even if it takes a long time to dig.
III The Working-Class
Struggle as the Driving Force of Capitalist Breakdown
Working-class activity is human activity, the active
foundation of capitalist society. But why do human beings act at all? The
driving force of all activity is desire; without desire, there would be no
action. For to
act is to negate what exists and create a new situation which is desired.
Already at this stage, an opposition necessarily
follows between capital and the proletariat. For capital, workers are nothing
but a means of producing surplus-value, and thus capital drives towards the
elimination of all independence, all autonomy, from them. They must have no
desires of their own, but must become instruments of the capitalists’ desire
for surplus-value.
But this cannot be realised because
workers have, and must have, desires of their own. At the most obvious level,
there is the desire for self-preservation, that is, for the material
necessities of life. This is a desire directed towards something outside
oneself, and the desire is satisfied when that object is obtained and consumed.
This, however, is hardly different from animal desire, which is also directed
towards an object. An object may create
an awareness of need, of something lacking in oneself, and lead to action which
satisfies that need. But, by itself, it cannot lead to consciousness of oneself
as a specifically human individual.
That self-consciousness, which constitutes one as a human individual, can come
only through desire directed towards other consciousnesses, other individuals,
other desires. Only others like oneself,
who can desire one in return, can
recognise that human value and thus confirm one’s own human individuality. No
object can do this. And so, the desire for recognition is a universal human
desire.
This is where the writers quoted in the
previous section make their biggest mistake. It is true that they recognise the
existence in workers of desire which is independent of the capitalists. But
there is an implicit assumption that this is an animal desire for self-preservation,
for objects of consumption. Thus, the only way they can conceive of the
revolution occurring is that a crisis (or the breakdown), by drastically
cutting down the living standards of workers, will stir them to overthrow the
capitalist system. The idea is that in the ultimate overthrow of capitalism, as
in their day-to-day struggles, workers act from only one motive – preservation
of their animal life.
Yet
workers are not animals any more than they are machines. To struggle against capital
means for a worker the very opposite of this: it means the risk of life. It is
true that success in the struggle can mean a better life (and that, too, not
purely in terms of a higher level of consumption).
But
failure often means severe hardship, and sometimes even death. And yet workers
struggle, knowing this. Why? The simple philosophy of most revolutionary intellectuals
cannot answer this question, and so to them the actual course of the class struggle must remain an enigma, against
which they have to pose an ideal revolutionary struggle. Only by recognising
workers as human beings with specifically human desires is it possible to
unravel the logic of the class struggle and then show how it shapes the
accumulation of capital and brings about its ultimate downfall.
According to Hegel, the struggle for
recognition takes the form of the Master/Slave dialectic. The protagonists
engage in a fight to the death for recognition. The victor, who does not flinch
in the face of death, becomes the Master (or Boss) while the loser, who
surrenders in order to save his animal life, becomes the Slave, who is
compelled to work for the Master. The Master has thus won the recognition of
the slave, has acted on him and forced him to take account of him. The slave,
on the other hand, through his work, through acting on nature, shaping or
forming an object which he does not himself consume, ‘becomes thereby aware of
himself as factually and objectively self-existent’.[47]
What is immediately striking is how
defective this dialectic is. If you
win and become master, you compel the other to recognise you by working for you.
But, by this very act, by denying the autonomy of the other’s desire, his or
her freedom not to recognise you, you
reduce the other to an object, a thing. So you have still failed to gain the
recognition of someone whose human value you recognise in return; ‘a
form of recognition has arisen that is one sided and unequal... just where the
master has effectively achieved lordship, he really finds that something has
come about quite different from an independent consciousness.’[48]
On the other hand, if you lose the fight and become the slave, you have the
consolation of objectifying yourself in the products of your labour which you
do not yourself consume. But, firstly, this is forced labour, and therefore not
work in which you can freely 
exercise
and develop your capacities; and secondly, the products of your labour are
regarded as objectifications of yourself only by yourself. The boss consumes
them, sells them, or does whatever he wants with them, but does not recognise
in them you in all your
individuality. So, you have not achieved recognition after all. This is a point
which Hegel does not seem to make. While he could accurately pinpoint the
frustration of the master, he perhaps identified himself too much with the master
race, the master class and the master sex to be able to describe or even imagine
the frustration of the slave.
In the end, no one is satisfied. What is
wrong? Surely it is the starting point that is wrong. For if there is a fight,
a race or a competition of any sort, the outcome cannot possibly be the
equality which Hegel himself specifies as the condition for true recognition.
Let us start from the beginning to see if any other outcome is possible. The
fight and its consequences occur only because each seeks recognition without
being prepared to concede recognition in return. If both not only desire recognition
but are prepared to concede it too, then they do not need to fight in order to
make the other work: they can, quite simply, work for each 
other.
In other words, it seems that the condition for true social 
recognition
is the abolition of all bosses so that work becomes the free activity of all.
This appears to be what Marx was meaning
when he wrote,
Let us suppose that we had produced as
human beings. In that event each of us would have doubly affirmed himself and his neighbour in his production. (1) In
my production I would have
objectified the specific character of
my individuality and for that reason
I would both have enjoyed the expression
of my own individual life during my
activity and also, in contemplating the object, I would experience an individual pleasure, I would
experience my personality as an objective sensuously perceptible power beyond
all shadow of doubt. (2) In your use or enjoyment of my product I would have
the immediate satisfaction and knowledge that in my labour I had gratified a human
need, i.e. that I had objectified human nature and hence had procured an object
corresponding to the needs of another human
being. (3) I would have acted for you as the mediator between you and the
species, thus I would be acknowledged by you as the complement of your own
being, as an essential part of yourself. I would thus know myself to be confirmed
both in your thoughts and your love. (4) In the individual expression of my own
life I would have brought about the immediate expression of your life; and so
in my individual activity I would have directly confirmed and realised my
authentic nature, my human, communal nature. Our productions would
be as many mirrors from which our natures would shine forth. This relation
would be mutual: what applies to me would also apply to you.[49]
It seems, then, that in the Master/Slave dialectic
Hegel describes a process of social recognition which is defective in every
way. And yet this 
is
the way in which social recognition has been conceded and won throughout human history;
in terms of this dialectic it is possible to understand why ‘the
history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.’[50]
For, while the desire for recognition
is basic to the human individual, the capacity to risk that individuality by recognising
others can perhaps
become universal only through a long process of historical development. It may
be that the pseudo-dialectic has to be developed to its highest point in
capitalist society, whose principle is the war of each against all, before it
can be transcended by a communist dialectic of mutual recognition.
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The
complexity and special significance of the working-class
struggle can be explained within this framework. It is true that the history of
capitalism has been one of the progressively growing strength and social weight
of the proletariat. At the same time, capitalism has shown an immense capacity
to incorporate and co-opt the gains of the working class and develop further on
the new basis provided by them. This it could not do unless there existed
within the working class itself some principle compatible with capitalist
accumulation. The competitive fight resulting in relations of domination and
subordination is not something which takes place only between capitalists and
workers, or among capitalists; workers themselves seek recognition in this
form, and to the extent that they do this, capitalist society can accommodate
them. The wage-labour/capital relation in fact subsists on competition among
workers, which enables capitalists to assert their arbitrary despotism
unhindered and thus to increase surplus-value production to a maximum and
reduce the value of labour-power correspondingly.
Conversely, to the extent that workers
combine and eliminate competition among themselves, to that extent they are
able to erode the absolute domination of the capitalist class, reduce the rate
of surplus-value, and thus surmount the laws of capitalist production.
So, it is not a simple, straightforward
fight with workers on this side, capitalists on that.
Even more basic is the struggle within the working class itself between the two
forms of recognition: recognition as competition and domination as against
recognition as mutuality, as communism. Only to the extent that this fight is
won is it possible to win the other fight against capital. This explains why
the working class, unlike any other oppressed class in history, cannot simply
overthrow one set of masters and substitute another. So long as workers try to
do this, they inevitably lose; a few individuals may succeed in escaping from
wage-slavery, but the rest will remain condemned to it. In other words, for
workers, the struggle for social recognition can only succeed as a struggle for
communism. Thus, central to 
the class
struggle is a learning process whereby relations of competition and domination
are overcome within the class and forms of combined opposition to the
domination of capital are discovered.
The struggle for communism, then, cannot
be understood if it is seen as a struggle consciously aimed at the immediate
and complete overthrow of the capitalist system. Such consciousness would, no
doubt, have to be introduced into the class from the outside, and, even then,
would not do much good because the question of how this overthrow is to be achieved remains unresolved. Rather,
the workers’ struggle for recognition of their human worth and dignity is
necessarily a struggle for values denied by capitalism. The success of this struggle
thus erodes capitalist domination bit by bit; this is the way in which capitalism is overthrown in practice, in
the course of a struggle which poses with progressively
greater clarity aims 
which
are in opposition to
the basis of capitalist rule.
This is the principle which governs the
autonomous development of the working-class struggle. But the forms taken by
that struggle, the phases it passes through, these are dependent also on
capitalist production and its laws of
development. A more concrete understanding of how the working-class struggle
develops must therefore include its determination by capital and the capitalist
process of production.
The life of workers is structured by
capital into what we might call the circuit of wage-labour: the sale of labour-power,
its consumption in the production process, its reproduction, its sale once more
and so on. In each phase of the circuit, and in the circuit as a whole, the
human desires of the workers come into conflict with capitalist authority
through which the production of surplus-value is ensured. This constitutes a
framework within which the historical cycles of working-class struggle can be
understood.
1.
Sale.
Capital defines the wage-labourer as an individual commodity-owner dealing in
the capacity to labour. The buyers of this commodity are the capitalists, so
their interest lies in preserving a buyers’ market by maintaining competition
between workers – especially since in this case not only the price but even the
value of the commodity depends on this. It is only under conditions of unlimited
competition amongst 
workers
that the capitalists can, for the least payment, obtain the use of their
labour-power for the longest time. Wage-labour is, for them, just like any
other element of productive capital, despite its peculiar properties.
For workers, the meaning of the wage is
different. Their capacity to work, and ultimately their work itself, is
exchanged for money: the universal equivalent,
and, in capitalist society, the perverted but only accepted symbol of social
recognition. Thus, the struggle to concede less work for more money is at
bottom not simply a fight for subsistence, but rather for social recognition of
the human value of the worker. And the gains of the struggle – living
conditions and leisure time which enable workers to lead a more human existence
– confirms the social value of the workers themselves as well as their work. If
it were purely a matter of subsistence, the fight need not last for long; the
capitalist class itself could be trusted to look after the animal needs of
those who produce surplus-value for them.
However, this struggle can be fought individually,
and so long as this is done, it is possible for the bourgeoisie to push down
wages and extend working hours to the maximum possible degree. It is only by combining
that workers can hit at these two modes of
surplus-value production. Thus, this fight is, at bottom, a fight over the
right to combine, for once the right to combine is won, the fate of wages and
the working day is already settled. This is why, until workers have proved
beyond all doubt their determination and capacity to combine, the bourgeoisie
employs all the repressive means at its disposal to prevent it. And even once
this right is won and trade unions are formed, competition among workers in the
selling of their labour-power persists in
many forms: piece rates, wage differentials, rival unions, organised and
unorganised, employed and unemployed, etc. Trade unions limit but do not
abolish the competitive struggle for recognition, and so the fight which is
internal to the working class as well as the struggle with the bourgeoisie
continues. Success in this struggle means not only a weakening of capitalist
authority, which thrives on the atomisation of the workers, but a drastic
reduction in the 
rate
of surplus-value due to a higher average level of wages and shorter working
hours.
2.
Consumption.
Having been bought by capital, labour-power becomes an element of productive
capital, and as such enters into the capitalist production process where it is
consumed, i.e. set to work. Having bought this commodity, the capitalist is
entitled to do what he likes with it for a specified period of time – in other
words, this is the sphere in which the arbitrary despotism of capital is most
nakedly revealed. Surplus-value production and direct capitalist domination are
here inseparably intertwined. Capitalist demands include the maximum speed of
work, no opportunity for
communication or meaningful social contact between workers, no breaks in
production, and extreme simplification of tasks so that they can be performed
with a mechanical efficiency. And all this implies the direct domination of
capital to ensure that these conditions are met, for they clash sharply with
the workers’ desire to work at a comfortable speed, avoid accidents and take
occasional breaks, enjoy the expression of their individuality as well as a
sense of collectivity during the work itself, and to be able to feel themselves
objectified in the product.
So, struggle is inherent in this phase of
the circuit too; sometimes taking the form of open challenges to the shop-floor
authority of capital, but often also taking more subterranean forms which may
not easily be recognised as forms of struggle at all; sometimes involving a
struggle to take control over work and working conditions, at others a
withdrawal of effort. Success in the struggle strikes at capitalist authority
in the workplace while at the same time cutting into the production of surplus-value.
But here, too, success depends on the capacity to overcome competitive efforts
to maintain hierarchies of skill and status amongst workers.
3.
Reproduction.
Finally, having been sold and consumed, labour-power has to be reproduced
before it can begin the circuit again, and replaced when it can no longer
return. Unlike the previous phase of the circuit, this is a phase where the
direct despotism of capital is least in evidence, and its very existence as a
distinct phase is a result of the struggle for the abolition of child labour,
shorter working hours and higher wages. It would seem, then, that in the family
and the community workers have the maximum freedom to discover and develop
communist relationships of mutual recognition, to find ways of expressing themselves
in activities that truly exercise their capacities and in which they can feel
they have objectified themselves. And this is true. Yet, paradoxically, the
struggle for recognition in the form of competition and domination is
apparent here too. In the working-class family the male worker gets a chance to
be the boss, and one result is the compulsion on
working-class women to perform domestic drudgery whose role in the reproduction
of labour-power is not even socially recognised through monetary payment, thus
contributing indirectly to the production of surplus-value. Another result is
the habituation of working-class children to a hierarchical structure of
authority which prepares
them to fit into school and later the workplace. Within the wider working-class
community, too, relationships of
mutual recognition are interspersed with the alternative type.
So, this phase is not, as it at first
sight seems, a haven of refuge from the class struggle, but, on the contrary, a
part of the arena where the battle rages as fiercely as ever. It is not
surprising, therefore, that the capitalist class attempts in whatever ways it
can to strengthen relationships within the working-class
family and community which pose no threat to surplus-value production and put
obstacles in the way of those which do. Successful working-class struggle in
this phase of the circuit not only weakens the most
deep-going foundation of capitalist authority, but
also indirectly cuts into surplus-value production to the extent that it
succeeds in reducing unpaid household
labour.
4. The Circuit as a Whole. These are the
three phases of the circuit, and, regardless of which is taken as the point of
departure, each is seen to be ridden with conflict. Likewise, the circuit as a
whole, which not only subsumes the three phases but has characteristics of its
own. The fight over the circuit as such is what is often called the ‘political
struggle’, but it is more accurate to see it as the struggle of the working
class to combat the despotism of capital on a social scale and to determine
social production as a whole. As in the workplace, so in society as a whole,
workers are, for capital, nothing but an embodiment of labour-power which is
either currently in use or is being kept in reserve. Therefore, the desire of
workers to control their own lives and thus, by implication, also to shape the
society of which they are the creative foundation, can be realised only through
a continuous struggle. And this struggle, by its nature, is not a fight against
this or that capital, this or that aspect of capitalism, but against capitalism
as a whole. Hence even partial success, which merely curbs but does not destroy
the despotic power of capital – e.g. the winning of the ‘battle for democracy’
as the Communist Manifesto puts
it – can have tremendous repercussions in terms of improving the position of
the working class in all phases of the circuit. Over and above this, the
capacity to determine social production even partially (e.g. by ensuring that
various goods and services continue to be produced even if they are
unprofitable) can by itself affect the rate of surplus-value. For, if this is
taken as a socially average quantity, its magnitude is affected not only by
individual rates of surplus-value but also by the way in which labour-power is
socially allocated between different branches of production. The tendency of
capital, undisturbed by external forces, is to distribute itself in such a
manner as to ensure the highest possible average rate of surplus-value.
Inasmuch as this distribution is disturbed, either through direct pressure from the workers, or through capitalist
measures against the workers, the
result will be a decline in the socially average rate of surplus-value.
However, an effective counter-strategy
which the bourgeoisie can undertake by means of the state is the maintenance of
racial and national differences within the working class which results in the
preservation of some sections of the international proletariat as a reserve of
cheap, unorganised labour. Hence the final abolition of surplus-value 
altogether
and control over social production as a whole can occur only when the working
class has totally eliminated competition among its members on an international
scale. Only then can the situation arise where, as Marx put it, everyone
produces as a human being. But this requires complete
mutual recognition of every individual’s human value
within the working class, the overcoming of all social divisions within it, and
this can only be a result of a long, historical learning process.
Any concrete inquiry into the working-class
struggle will thus have to take into account not only the desires, aspirations,
which are the moving force of that struggle, but also the way in which the
circuit of wage-labour, i.e. the determination of the working class by capital,
shapes that struggle. 
And
such an inquiry into the struggle over all phases of the circuit as well as the
circuit in its totality will in turn reveal how the working-class struggle has
shaped and is shaping capitalism, and how it will ultimately drive it out of
existence altogether.
But a question remains. It is quite
evident that in all phases of the circuit as well as in the circuit as a whole,
the working class has made tremendous gains in comparison with the total denial
of its humanity which the bourgeoisie initially tried to establish. And yet
capitalist accumulation has by no means come to a final halt as yet, nor
dwindled to insignificant proportions. Why not?
Firstly, throughout this period, the
proletariat on a world scale has been in formation. Strata freshly drawn into
the working class have often, although in a telescoped fashion, had to wage all
over again the most elementary battles to limit the rate of exploitation. In
the meantime, capital has been able to exploit their labour-power so as to
obtain extremely high rates of surplus-value which have contributed to
maintaining the average rate of profit. This source of surplus-value remains accessible
to world capital so long as the world proletariat is still in
formation.
Secondly, capital’s capacity to increase
the rate of surplus-value depends as we have seen on the rate at which it can
increase the social productivity of labour. And the social productivity of
labour depends not only on technological advance but on the capacities of
workers themselves. Thus, as the gains of the class struggle release, set free,
develop, the capacities of the proletariat, so the social productivity of
labour increases by leaps and bounds. Its advance is so rapid that even with a
continuous improvement in living standards, shortening of the working day,
reduction of unpaid household labour and redistribution of social labour-time
in favour of the working class, it is still possible for sufficient surplus-value
to be produced to keep up the rate of surplus-value
and thus also the rate of profit.
The consequence is that, even if initially
a working-class struggle which is successful contributes to a capitalist
crisis, so long as the wage-labour relation itself is not abolished, capital
can adjust. And it does. Further, it can even take that gain as the
presupposition for a further period of expansion on a completely restructured
basis, using a different mode of surplus-value production, as happened when the
working day was first shortened. It cannot
then seek to abolish that gain without threatening itself, and so that
particular victory of the working class becomes relatively securely
established. But this also means that it no longer directly threatens
capitalism, but has been adapted by capitalism for its own purposes.
It
would be wrong to conclude from this that the success was in fact of no
advantage to the workers but only strengthened capital. To the extent that it
extends the autonomy of the working class, undermines the authority of 
capital
and limits the options open to it, it is a permanent gain. Yet unless the
working class moves on to make new gains, it would be allowing capital to
accumulate undisturbed on the new basis. For the proletariat, therefore, there
is no chance to rest back on one’s laurels. Just as capital is repeatedly
forced to revolutionise itself in response to
the class struggle, so the proletariat, whether
defeated or victorious, must repeatedly revolutionise
its own struggles in order to fight a restructured
capital.
The class struggle, like capitalist
accumulation, proceeds in cycles; but there is a long-term tendency underlying
the cycles. And this tendency is the growing capacity of workers to determine
their own lives, and hence also the society of which they are the creative basis.
Capital, conversely, becomes increasingly marginal to the process of social
reproduction as its grave is dug under its very feet. And this process of its
decline and downfall, like the process of its birth and development, cannot be
understood in isolation from the working-class struggle, the struggle for
communism.
Capital, therefore, can be adequately
understood only from the standpoint 
of
the proletariat and its struggle. Such an understanding of the past would be a
working-class history of its own formation and the development of capitalism.
As it relates to the present, it would be the results of a workers’ inquiry
into the class struggle and capitalism today. As it relates to the future, it
would be a clarification of the ultimate goals of the class struggle, of the
nature of communism. All three moments are necessary. For the revolutionary
programme, which anticipates the way in which the working-class struggle will
bring about the breakdown and the realisation of communism, comes into being
only when ‘the present is
ordered in terms of the future’ in 
such
a way that ‘the future makes its way into the present not in an immediate manner (the case of a utopia)
but having been mediated by the past
i.e. by an already accomplished action.’[51] In the accomplishment of
this task, capital and Marx’s study of it certainly have a crucial place; but
they cannot constitute the point of departure and point of arrival without
converting the study into a contemplative and
scholastic one. That place can properly be taken only by capital’s active
foundation, its general creative basis, the ground on which it stands: the
working class.
