为马克思利润率下降理论辩护

Defending Marx's Theory of the Falling Profit Rate

马克思对利润率下降理论的阐述以资本积累为背景,其核心是资本的构成。当快速的资本积累用尽劳动力的供给时,工资上涨会降低利润,减少资本积累;后者又导致失业增加,下降的工资再促使资本积累逐渐加速。19世纪英国商业周期的波动证实了它们的关系。资本积累的进一步机制是用机器代替工人。个别资本家节约成本的技术革新,不会必然地提高总资本积累的一般利润率,利润率的部门差异引致积累的资本在竞争中涌向不同的领域,最终过多的资本积累瓦解了资本积累的目的本身——利润的增加。依据马克思资本积累基本模型构建的动态模型,能够估算资本主义国家一般利润率的历史和未来演变。

Marx's elaboration on the falling profit rate is based on capital accumulation, focusing on the composition of capital. When rapid capital accumulation exhausts the supply of labor force, rising wages will reduce profits and capital ac-cumulation; the latter will lead to an increase of unemployment while decreased wages gradually accelerate capital accumulation. Fluctuations of business cycle of the UK in the 19th century confirmed their relation. The further mechanism of capital accumulation is replacing workers with machines. Individual capitalists' cost-saving techno-logical innovation does not necessarily improve the average profit margin of the total capital accumulation. Differ-ences of profit margins among different sectors make accumulated capital flow to different fields in the competition. And ultimately the excessive capital accumulation would disrupt its own objective, which is the increase of profit. The dynamic model which is built on the basis of Marx's basic model of capital accumulation can be used to esti-mate the history and future evolution of average profit margin of capitalist countries.