Marx and Keynes? Marx or Keynes? A Comment

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-1987

Abstract

The article presents information on views of economist Karl Marx. Economist Royall Brandis asserted that Karl Marx was faced with a problem he could not solve. The problem, as presented by Brandis, is that Marx was fundamentally concerned with the decline and fail of capitalism, and that he "had no need for, nor for that matter, any room for business cycles," and yet he dealt extensively with the problem of business cycles. The purpose of this comment is to show that Man's views on the business cycle were perfectly consistent with, and in fact followed from, his views on the development and decline of capitalism. In Marx's view, the fundamental process governing all social development is the contradiction between the relations of production and the development of the forces of production. In Man's view, the development of the forces of production is a continual process, and, at a particular point, the particular relations of production in existence become a fetter on the further development of the forces of production. In Marx's view, the business cycle was an integral part of capitalism and a reflection of the fundamental contradiction of capitalism. Man believed that the sharpening of this contradiction would lead the proletariat to organize in a conscious way to overthrow the capitalist system.

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