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Clearing up what I think are misconceptions with regards to the tendency for the rate of profit to fall:
So I won't go into detail with regards to the basics of the law. I would recommend watching this video as it is the least leftoid explanations of the concept
Now from the get-go many people claim that we can't empirically prove the validity of the law, which is dumb. Just because data is shows something to be happening in the past does not negate the ability for it to predict trends in the future. I could make the same claim -
- about the expansion of the universe. Evidence only shows that it has expanded in the past, however, a consistent trend of that happening means that its highly likely to happen again in the future
So the equation for the rate of profit goes as such:
Marx assumed that s/v remains constant and that c/v grows, and this is where the dispute comes from. s/v does not remain constant and actually increases along with c/v, and thus the rate of profit either rises or remains constant.
However, this isn't the case, as we can observe that s/v does not always rise as c/v rises nor does it rise at the same rate as c/v when the rate of profit falls
And we can see this from data looking at the rate of profit over time in any very industrialised country
Now, Marx's law isnt necessarily central to my critique of capitalism, though it does explain why imperialism happens. I doubt the degree to which it influences crisis and I think the claim that the falling rate of profit will end capitalism is absurd.
However, it is a tendency within the mode of production that is capitalism if we are to use Marx's formula.
While marx's assumption that s/v remains constant is false, both the logic of the law and the observations of it within capitalist economies stand up to scrutiny as s/v seems to constantly rise slower than c/v or just flat out decreases
