The general law of capitalist accumulation and the labour power shortage theory

Abstract

This paper analyses, based in general law of capitalist accumulationand other theoretical developments of Marx, the arguments of the labour powershortage theory of crisis. The first section presents the three arguments of Marxabout the relationship between accumulation and the movement of wages: (i)assuming that the composition of capital does not change, then, the pace ofaccumulation regulates the movement of wages; (ii) assuming that increasingcomposition of capital express dominant relationship in capitalism, the industrialreserve army will be the regulatory mechanism of wages; (iii) the cyclical natureof relative surplus-population. The second section, presents the arguments of thelabour power shortage theory of crisis, whose central point is to maintain constantthe composition of capital at the stage of prosperity in order to exhaust theindustrial reserve army causing the increase in wages, fall in profitability andultimately the crisis. The last section presents criticism of this kind of explanationfor crisis based on four points: (i) the methodological aspects indicated by Marxon the study of economic crises; (ii) the inadequate treatment of the concepts ofconcrete and abstract; (iii) the relationship between competition and compositionof capital; (iv) the concept of industrial reserve army.