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On Sun, 9 Jan 2000, Brad De Long wrote: 
 
> Does anyone think Marx was correct? Falling rate of profit? Real  
> wages being driven down to subsistence levels (either absolute or  
> relative)? Final crisis of capitalism?   
 
1. The falling rate of profit is a *theoretical tendency*, which, 
according to Marx's theory, capital has to repeatedly overcome. If capital 
has historically overcome the tendency, that is no disproof of the 
existence of the tendency. 
 
2. "Subsistence" for Marx -- as for Smith -- referred to a historical and 
not to an absolute physical standard. The past 20 years in the U.S. has 
seen wages of working people driven below previously attained historical 
standards. Again, no final disproof of the tendency. 
 
3. The final crisis of capitalism is manifest in the need for the constant 
intervention of the state to change the rules every time capital isn't 
winning. When was the last big whoops that didn't require massive state 
(including central bank) intervention? If capitalism has rid itself of 
crisis, why is Alan Greenspan so popular? Of course, given ever-exanding 
state institutions for the preservation of capitalism, embalming-fluid 
"capitalism" could last for ever and become ever more dysfunctional and 
parasitic. What would that prove? 
 
To answer Brad's first question, I don't believe the above "proves" that 
Marx was "correct" any more than the answers Brad may presume would prove 
that Marx was wrong. Marx addressed far more interesting questions than 
the imputed predictions would suggest. 
 
 
Tom Walker 
 
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