Marx's Law of the Profit Rate and the Reproduction of Capitalism: Neither Determinism Nor Overdetermination

Abstract

This article supports a holistic interpretation of Marxian thought to argue the existence of socio-historical, objectives and tendential laws of motion governing the reproduction of the system. In particular, it highlights the place of the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall in the analysis of the reproduction of capitalism, and therefore the theory of crisis, as crises arise from the inner logic of capital. While holistic and emphasizing the objective aspects, this approach is not deterministic, nor does it fall into the indeterminacy of the overdetermination approach.