appelbaum (1978) - marx's theory of the falling rate of profit

8/13/2019 Appelbaum (1978) - Marx's Theory of the Falling Rate of Profit

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MARX'S THEORY OF THE FALLING RATE OF PROFIT:TOWARDS A DIALECTICAL ANALYSIS OF

STRUCTURAL SOCIAL CHANGE*RICHARDP. APPELBAUM

University of California, Santa BarbaraAmerican Sociological Review 1978, Vol. 43 (February):67-80

Conventional sociological theory is unable to account for endogenous change at the structurallevel. While various sociologists have attempted to develop aframework that would account forsuch change by abstracting formalized elements out of Marxist theory, these efforts-preciselybecause of their highly formal nature-are unsuccessful. Marx's theory itself seeks to explainchange as built into the contradictory survival requirements of class societies conceived asclosed social systems. The forces militating for change play themselves out with quasi-automatic necessity. The direction of change depends partly on the structural parameters andpartly on the consciousness of individuals organized into social classes. It is argued that theutility of Marx's approach is tied both to his overall theoreticalframework, and its rootedness inspecific historical, social and economic conditions. This argument is illustrated with referenceto Marx's theory of the falling rate of profit under conditions of competitive capitalism.

The past decade has seen an enormousincrease in Marxist scholarshipavailablein the English anguage.In additionto thenumerousprimaryworks and collections,key writings hitherto unavailable inEnglish now have been translated andpublished.'The writings of Lenin are be-comingavailablealso, as are those of suchearly Hegelian Marxists as Lukacs.2 Asizeable number of journals concernedwith Marxist scholarshiphave appearedalso in the past ten years.3It is likely that

at no time since the first quarterof thiscentury has there been a comparable re-naissance of interest in Marxismin theUnited States.This activity largely has been ignoredwithinthe confinesof the establishedaca-demic disciplines. The sociologist con-cernedwithdevelopingproficiencywithina Marxist frameworkmust look outsidehis field for direction andguidance.Since1970the principal ournals of the profes-sion have carriedonly some thirtyarticlesthatin any way addresstheoreticalor em-pirical issues arising from the Marxistparadigm.4 As a direct consequence of

* Successive drafts and variousversions of thispaper have drawn upon the helpful criticisms ofTony Giddens, Alvin Gouldner,Harvey Molotch,JamesO'Connor,BertellOllman,HowardSherman,PaulSweezy, ErikOlinWright,MorrisZelditch,andseveralanonymousreferees. Responsibility or thefinal interpretationand argument is, of course,entirelymy own.I Principal mong heseis Nicolaus'stranslationfTheGrundrisse,Marx'seconomicnotebooksduringthe period1857-8,appropriatelyubtitled Founda-tions of the Critiqueof PoliticalEconomy. Thisworkcontainsthe mostdetailedexpositionavailableof Marx'smethodology,andis itselfthegroundworkfor thewritingswhichwere to appeara decadelaterin Capital.

2 Lukacs's influentialwritingsduringthe 1920swerecollected andpublishednGerman n 1968; heEnglish ranslationwas published n 1971,underthetitle, History and Class Consciousness.' For example, Telos, a journalheavilyorientedtowardsphenomenologicalMarxism, irst appeared

in 1968; Radical America in the mid-1960s; SocialistRevolution in 1970; the Review of Radical PoliticalEconomics, ournalof theUnionforRadicalPoliticalEconomics(URPE) in the late 1960s;TheInsurgentSociologist in 1971; WorkingPapers for a New Soci-ety in 1973; Working Papers on the Kapitalist Statein 1973; Crime and Social Justice in 1974; Theoryand Society in 1974; Contemporary Crises in 1976.4 Four ournalswere searched or articlesappear-ing betweenJanuary1970andJune 1977whichad-dressedthe Marxistparadigm.The ournals ncludedThe American Sociological Review, American Jour-nal of Sociology, Social Forces, and Social Prob-lems. The articlesencounteredwereeithertheoreti-cal in nature or concerned with empiricalissuesemerging from a Marxist perspective. Not allempirically-orientedarticles cited Marx, but allexaminedMarxisthypotheses.

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68 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWthis ignorance, Marx's theory of socialchangehas been misunderstood n Ameri-can social science. While the most com-montendency has been to vulgarizeMarxas an economic determinist (Van denBerghe, 1963:699-700), he also is treatedas a propounderof an ill-defineddialectic(Van den Berghe, 1963;Schneider,1971).Nonetheless, there have been severalefforts in recent decades to incorporateMarx into the sociological mainstream.These efforts generally take the form ofdistilling rom Marx'swriting hat which iscompatible with a functionalistapproachto the social world-in particular,his con-cern with social conflict and change.Marx'stheoryis abandoned eadily,whilecertain features of his dialectical methodare extracted and preservedas heuristicprinciples. I have characterizedsuch ef-forts asformalist. Formalism, n the senseemployed here, has two relatedmeanings:(1) the belief that Marx'smethod can beseparated from his theoretical frameworkandfruitfullyapplied o anotherone (func-tionalism)which differs n its key concep-tualcategoriesand theirinterrelations;2)the belief that it is possible to generatehighlyabstractpropositionsabout the so-cial world(inthiscase, derived romMarx-ist theory) that are transsituationalandeven transhistorical.Both of these mean-ings implythe tacit assumption hat a so-cial theory consists of various elementsthat logicallycan be separatedboth fromone another and their empiricalcontent,and subsequently recombined and re-applied in other contexts. Both misun-derstand Marxism, and, more impor-tantly, sacrifice the promisecontainedinMarx'sapproach o the study of politicaleconomy: a theory of endogenous struc-tural social change which is neither de-terminist nor voluntarist. To elaboratethese points is the task of this paper. Ishallconsiderfirstseveralrecentsociolog-ical treatmentsof Marx to illustrate thepitfalls resulting from the formalism in-herent in their approach. I then shallexamine one aspect, of Marx's crisistheoryin an effortto demonstrate hattheutilityof his methodis boundup with hislargertheoreticalframework.

FORMALIST APPROACHES TOMARXIST ANALYSIS

Dialectics as HeuristicsRytina and Loomis (1970:309) haveclaimed that no American sociologist hastried to show that the dialectic, in a formthat Marx would have recognized, is auseful approach to social science. Therehave, however, been some attempts torescue the dialectic from Marxism andtranslate it to a more conventional so-ciological framework. Such efforts illus-trate the pitfalls of formalism in the firstsense of the preceding definition. We shall

examine the efforts of Van den Berghe(1963) and Schneider (1971) in this regard.Van den Berghe (1963:699) derives aminimum dialectic approach byeliminating what he perceives as unac-ceptable in Marx's method.5 This includesthe latter's alleged economic deter-minism, along with his dualistic view ofsocial realtiy, which confused an em-pirical tendency for contradictions andconflicts to polarize into pairs of oppo-sites, with a logical necessity to do so.What remains, according to Van denBerghe (1963:699), are two elements whichappear both useful and valid:

(1) Change is not only ubiquitous, but animportant hareof it is generatedwithin thesystem; i.e., the social structure must belooked at, not only as the static frameworkof society, butalso as the sourceof a crucialtype of change.(2) Changeof intra-systemic r endogenousorigin often arises from contradictionandconflict between two or more opposing fac-tors. These factors can be values,ideologies, roles, institutions, or groups.

This approach then is held to apply tothree levels. One corresponds to Hegel'sfocus on ideas: abstract but explicitly

5 Vanden Berghe 1963:699) oes not thinkmuchof Hegelian-Marxistdialectic, since, after at-temptingo see whatcanbeusefullysalvagedof thedialectic, he concludes, admittedly not verymuch, although the residualcore is of great im-portance. Nonetheless, he does not hesitate tospeak of the dialecticmethod, a termhe appar-entlyuses interchangeably ith dialecticoutlook.


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MARX'S THEORY OF THE FALLING RATE OF PROFIT 69formulatedcultural concepts, viewed inisolation from concrete participants(700). A second level corresponds toMarx's concern with social institutions:the internalcontradictions growing outof institutionalizedprocesses of interac-tion (700). A third evel corresponds o amoregeneralinterest-group heorywhichviews conflict pluralistically rather thandualistically.Van den Berghe's minimumdialecticapproach enables him to transcendadhoc eclecticism and . . . reach a balancedtheoretical synthesis (705) betweenMarxismand functionalism.He sees fourcommonalitiesbetween the two: (1) bothare holistic in approach;(2) both involveconflict as well as integration-since con-flict and integration imply one another(e.g., toomuchconsensusorintegrationmayimpede social-systemadaptation o chang-ing circumstances,and hence resultin dis-integrationand conflict); (3) both share aunilinearnotion of social changein whichfuture stages are contained within thepresent; and (4) both are fundamentallygrounded n a dynamicequilibriummodelof social organization.For dialectics-thesynthesis, according to Van denBerghe-is the reestablishment f equilib-rium after disturbance.Schneider's reformulation resemblesthat of Van den Berghe in that he alsoextracts a dialecticalperspective or bentexpressed as a set of heuristicprinciplesfor an analytic framework capable ofcomprehending social conflict.6 Thedialectical bent is legitimized bySchneider through demonstrating itspresence in the classics (e.g., thenineteenth century Scottish historian,John Miller; Herbert Spencer; Pareto;Weber; Marx; Wundt; Veblen). Thisbent . . . involved in some of the mostfundamentalnsightsin sociology (1971:669) reduces to three basic elements: (1)unanticipated/unintended consequencesof purposivesocial action(Merton's atent

functions?), as a result of which mancomes to confront a world he may thinkhe never made but which he did make, anotion therefore akin to the phenomenaof reification and alienation (670); (2)heterogony of ends, whereby originally in-tended ends are displaced by means ofsecondary ones or are enlarged beyondoriginal expectations (this resemblesHegel's cunning f reason, where pettyindividual aims unintentionally contributeto history's larger purpose); and (3)paradox, or the irony of sudden rever-sals, as for example when success leadsto failure because initial adaptations turnout to be maladaptive in the long run.Schneider then augments this historicalreview by distinguishing seven meaning-clusters derived from an examination ofthe sociological literature, which turn outto be largely reducible to the three basicelements distinguished above.7 He con-cludes with an assessment of the value ofthe dialectic as he has developed it, andexpresses the hope that as a consequenceof his study, we now have a shrewd tax-onomy not quite achieved previously andenhanced awareness of a certain kind ofsubtlety that attaches to particular kindsof social change . . . (676).Both Schneider and Van den Berghehave attempted to view formalistically thedialectic as a set of heuristic principleswhich might serve as a guide to more con-crete scientific studies informed by theseprinciples. Let us briefly summarize theseheuristic principles in schematic form:

(I) Holism: the relevant unit of analysisis the social system, viewed as an interre-lated configuration of differentiated ele-ments. Van den Berghe (1963:701-2),however, mistakenly views Hegelian-

6 Schneider (1971:667), following Kaufman (1965),goes so far as to argue that there is no dialectical'method' to expound. Hence his use of the morerestrictive terms perspective and bent.'

7 The meaning-clusters include (1) discrepancy be-tween aims and outcomes (involving elements of un-anticipated consequences and paradox); (2) goalshifts and displacements (heterogony of ends); (3)systems adaptations that ultimately prove dysfunc-tional (unanticipated consequences, paradox); (4)contradiction (which Schneider apparently equateswith paradox); (5) the contradictory logic of pas-sion, which produces unanticipated consequences;(6) development through conflict . . . stress, and(7) the dissolution of conflict in a kind of coales-cence of opposites, e.g., love and hatred (675-6).


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70 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWMarxist analysis as tending to emphasizesingle-factor unidirectional causation, incontradistinction to functionalism, whichhe sees as arguing for multiple and recip-rocal causation.

(II) Conflict: this characterized, atleast as much as integration, the relationsamong the parts of the relevant system.Conflict is a ubiquitous feature of socialsystems.A. Social change results from conflict;hence, change is also a ubiquitous featureof all social systems.B. Conflict is generated endogenously,i.e., as a result of conflict between two ormore opposing forces within the socialsystem (analogous to the Marxian notionof international contradiction).C. Conflict often results as a latentfunction of social structures within the so-cial system. This is because human ac-tions and the consequent social institu-tions often eventuate in both unantici-pated and/or unintended consequencesand dysfunctions (from the long-run pointof view of system adaptability).(III) Dynamic equilibrium: this de-scribes the movement of conflict-ridden,changing social systems through time. Asconflicts are worked out, the systemequilibrates at another level, until newlygenerated conflicts produce new disequi-libriums and new adjustments.A. This dynamic equilibrium might alsobe described as a moving synthesis.B. It implies an evolutionary view ofsocial change in which future forms of so-

cial systems are contained within and re-flect the working out of conflicts withinthe present forms.Reduced to these principles, the dialec-tic becomes an empty truism. Commonsense knowledge, dialectical or otherwise,tells us that social institutions are bestconceived systemically; that conflict andchange characterize many if not most so-cial relations; that such conflict andchange often occur because human ac-tions produce unforeseen and undesiredresults; and that institutions, includingsocieties, often evolve by fits-and-starts,rather than remaining forever stable. Adialectical approach must overcome thepredominantly arbitrary nature of unex-

plained historical events by deriving themfrom elements of their social structures(Dahrendorf, 1964: 100). Simply stated, itmust account for the possibility ofendogenous social change.To address this issue, it is first neces-sary to distinguish endogenous fromexogenous sources of change. In classicalfunctionalist theory, the sources of socialchange were regarded ultimately as exter-nal to the social systems. Change wasconceptualized as an internal responseto changing external conditions. Thus,for example, Durkeim (1964:256-328)thought the increasing division of laborand the corresponding changes in the formof solidarity resulted from growing popu-lation ( moral density ). The growingpopulation simultaneously increased pres-sure on scarce resources, thereby neces-sitating more efficient modes of socialorganization, and destroyed the socialbases for widely shared collective beliefs.Left alone, isolated social systems, tend-ing toward equilibrium or homeostasis(Appelbaum, 1970:65-80), were presum-

ably highly stable over time. Butmounting population (a biological, nonso-cial condition) provides the cause of newsystem adjustments. There are othercauses, but these are also external; e.g.,contact with other cultures through war-fare or trade. Classical functionalism, inregarding social systems as relativelystable, well-integrated configurations ofelements in which each element contrib-utes to the overall functioning of thewhole, cannot account for internalsources of system change. Marxism, how-ever, claims to be able to do just that. It isprecisely this feature of dialectics thatSchneider and Van den Berghe wish topreserve in their reformulations. What, intheir views, are the possible sources ofendogenous social change?One set of possibilities, having little todo with the properties of social systemsthemselves, refer to the perspectives ofthe actors. These are changes that appearaccidental or infelicitous to the actors in-volved. Such changes constitute severalof Schneider's (1971) dialectical mean-ing-clusters (discrepancy between aimand outcome, contradiction, goal shifts


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MARX'S THEORY OF THE FALLING RATE OF PROFIT 71and displacements),8 as well as Vanden Berghe's notion of latent functions.According to these formulations, ourbest-intended acts oftentimes betray us inways unforseen and unintended. Goals arenot achieved because of unanticipated cir-cumstances; we lose sight of our largerpurposes along the way; we find that ouractions, producing quite the contrary re-sults from those originally intended, ne-gate our original purposes, and cast usinto ironic paradoxes. Schneider (1971:675) treats contradiction, oppositenessor opposition, paradox ('seeming con-tradiction'), negation, dilemma as equiv-alent. In fact, he mistakenly identifiessuch inadvertent reversals with Hegel'scunning of reason (669, 671n, 673, 674)and Marx's reification (670). Such re-versals are accidental, however, onlyfrom the perspective of the individual,who is presumed to act in a rational,goal-oriented fashion, yet who, for var-ious reasons, fails to achieve that whichwas originally intended. Why the failure?This pivotal question is not addressed, butwe may speculate. One possible explana-tion is lack of information. The individualactor, because of the complexities of so-cial situations, simply does not possess allthe knowledge s/he requires to fully an-ticipate all possible outcomes and therebygovern action appropriately. Anotherpossibility has to do with changing circum-stances. Actions appropriate to achievegoals under given conditions may producequite different results when conditionschange, if action is not suitably altered toreflect changing conditions. Whatever thereasons, the important feature of such ac-cidental reversals, from the perspective ofthe actor, is their ironic or paradoxicalnature.The ironic or paradoxical quality ofsuch seemingly accidental reversals is not,however, significant in terms of the task athand: to derive a perspective whichenables the sociologist to comprehend

change as necessarily internal to socialstructures. Whatever the sources of con-fusion for the actors involved, thesociologist is attempting to show thatunder given empirical conditions changemust occur, and in a particular direction.Again, why should change be neces-sary-an embedded feature of socialstructures?When Schneider (1971:673) talks of sys-tems adaptations that prove dysfunc-tional, or when Van den Berghe (1963:699) speaks of development through con-flict (see also Schneider 1971:675), bothmen are referring to changes that resultfrom occurrences within the social systemwhich are subject to lawful explanation.While it is obvious that changes oftenoccur through dysfunction and conflict, itis not clear from their examples why suchchange should be necessary. As an exam-ple of changes arising from dysfunction,Schneider (1971:674) offers highway con-struction which, although intended to re-lieve congestion, actually generates moretraffic. As an example of the changes aris-ing from conflict, we have interest groupconflict of all forms (Van den Berghe,1963:700). Is the former merely an in-stance of bad planning? The latter, theresults of human rapaciousness? Whyshould highway planners fail to anticipatethe larger consequences of their actions?Why should one group of people haveinterests antithetical to those of another?Are dysfunction and conflict necessaryfeatures of social systems?

Schneider (1971:673-4) offers a partialanswer to this question when he speaks ofstructures or forms that constitute rela-tively effective adaptations but stand inthe way of more effective adaptations be-cause of 'investments' already made. Asan example, he offers Marx's theory ofsurplus value. After apologizing for usingan instance he apparently regards as pos-sessing doubtful empirical value, henonetheless finds something suggestive inthe form of Marx's reasoning:A nuance arisesas one thinksof a systemcontext in which some specificproductthatemerges from and marks success turnsabout, so to speak, and leads to failure orsystem breakdown.... Surplusvalue does

8 Schneider's heterogony of ends would appearto be a specific instance of unanticipated/unintendedconsequences in which the pursuit of certain goalsunexpectedly results in enlargement of those goals,their displacement by other goals, etc.


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72 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWin a sense emerge from the success ofcapitalism. It unequivocally marks orsignalizes that success. And yet in time, foreconomic (and class-psychological) easons,this very product of surplus value bringsabout the downfallof capitalism. (673-4)Why is this an example of short-run sys-tems adaptations that prove dysfunctionalin the long-run? Perhaps it is the narrow-mindedness of individual capitalists, whofail to appreciate that by garnering surplusvalue they will engineer their own defeatfor economic and class-psychological rea-sons. In that case, we return again to theproblem of inadequate information, andhistory can be cheated by a process ofeducation. Or perhaps it is because aneconomic system based on surplusvalue-which appeared to constitute arelatively effective adaptation at one time(to what? for whom?)-proved to have de-leterious effects in the long-run. Too manyinvestments in capital and managerialforms (and perhaps class privilege), how-ever, now impede individual capitalistsfrom shifting to something new. Here the

notion of institutional inertia must be in-voked to account for the failure to respondeffectively to changing conditions.Change is again conceived as resultingfrom an external source, in this case theossification of social forms. In neithercase, however, is a structural theory ofsocial change offered. The first possibilityultimately locates change in individualperceptions, while the second invokes in-variant and external constraints on socialinstitutions. The example from Marx,however, does provide a clue, although ina somewhat different direction than thatsought by Schneider. For Marx, surplusvalue does not merely emerge from, mark,nor signalize the success of capitalism; itrather is required by the internal logic ofcapitalist economic production. We shallpursue this central point in the final sec-tion of this paper.Marxism as Conflict Theory

Both Schneider and Van den Bergheoffer heuristic principles for a dialecticalmethodology. The formalism of this ap-proach has been criticized insofar as itremoves the promise Marxism purports to

offer as a theory of structural change. Thesame is true for those theorists who wouldrestate Marx's work as a corpus of univer-sal (i.e., transhistorical and transsitua-tional) propositions concerning social con-flict, the most prominent examples ofwhich are contained in the writings ofDahrendorf (1959) and Turner (1973; 1974;1975a; 1975b). Both writers are concernedto develop a general theory of social con-flict in propositional form. Dahrendorf re-formulates Marx by substituting authorityfor property as the defining characteristicof social class, and derives a theory ofinterest-group conflict. Insofar as his at-tention thereby shifts from the overallsociety to the level of the social group, hisefforts are less central to the present dis-cussion than are those of Turner(1975b:626), who limits himself to a prop-ositional restatement of Marxism in orderto better extract from him what istheoretically useful and move on withthe job of theory-building. Turner(1975b:626) strongly argues that suchtheories are most useful when stated attheir most abstract level, for it is in thisform that the debt of contemporarytheorizing to these two German scholars[Simmel and Marx] becomes most evi-dent. Turner's approach, then, is self-consciously formalist in the second senseof that term as I have used it. His intent isto develop propositions of universal valid-ity which can then be combined with otherpropositions from other sources, until asociology of conflict is developed-an in-ventory of propositions that explain thesource and evolution of social conflict inall forms. Turner's (1975b:621) proposi-tions, derived from Marx, include the fol-lowing:

I. The more unequal the distribution ofscarceresources na system, the greaterwillbe theconflict of interestsbetween dominantand subordinate egments in a system.II. The more subordinate egments becomeaware of their true collective interests, themore likely they are to question the legiti-macy of the unequality of distributionofscarce resources....C. The more members of subordinate eg-ments can communicate heir grievances toeach other, the more likely are they to be-comeawareof theirtruecollective interests.(1) The more ecological concentrationof


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MARX'S THEORY OF THE FALLING RATE OF PROFIT 73membersof subordinate roups, the morelikelyare they to communicate heirgriev-ances.(2) The more subordinateshave access toeducational media, the more diverse themeans of their communication, and themorelikely they are to communicate heirgrievances.

What is striking about these proposi-tions is their generality. It is not that theyviolate the spirit of their source, nor thatthere is no utility in rigorously statingone's hypotheses and conclusions.Rather, it is that these propositions, likethe dialectical principles presented by Vanden Berghe and Schneider, are so un-specified as to be largely empty. Consider(I). What scarce resources? Whichsystem? Does or should this proposi-tion apply with equal force to familygroups, the military, all societies, religiousgroups, political parties? Marx's originalformulations are concerned specificallywith the relations of social classes in aclass-based society. Why should a prop-osition based on this situation acquireuniversal validity? Marx himself invokesno abstract conflict of interests, whichsomehow is held to vary directly with thedegree of maldistribution. Rather, heexamines specific class conflicts, such asthe historical struggle in England over thelength of the working day, to spell outtheir relationship to such structural vari-ables as the average rate of profit, thedegree of monopolization, or the move-ment of the business cycle. Consider(JIC). What is meant by ecological con-centration? This proposition is a general-ized restatement of Marx's (Marx andEngels, 1848:345) contention in the Com-munist Manifesto that the advanceof industry, whose involuntary promoteris the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation ofthe laborers, due to competition, by theirrevolutionary combination, due to asso-ciation. But in the same document, Marxalso notes that this organization of theproletarians into a class, and consequentlyinto a political party, is continually beingupset again by the competition betweenthe workers themselves (343). Marx, infact, states a number of conditions whichmediate the level of class struggle in theManifesto-a document intended as a

polemic, and which therefore tends toemphasize the inevitability of revolution.While Marx personally may have neverdoubted this long-run result, in his moresystematic writings such as Capital he fo-cused on the complexity of interrelatedconditions that can modify the class strug-gle, including the degree of class con-sciousness, under specific conditions.Again, Turner is seeking a generalized re-statement of that which Marx specifies asempirically existing circumstances. Thereis clearly truth in Turner's proposition;but one can immediately think of numer-ous exceptions, situations which mitigateor modify the law as stated. And it is pre-cisely such mitigating circumstances thatare of interest to Marx's theory, a theoryof the historically concrete.Marx himself, as is well-known, oftenrefers to general laws. In Vol. 1 of Capi-tal, he discusses the tendency of capitalisteconomic production to develop a reservearmy of surplus labor in proportion to theexpansion of capital. This, says Marx(1867:644; emphasis removed), is theabsolute general law of capitalist accumu-lation. But Marx, in the very nextsentence, qualifies his conclusion in a sig-nificant way. He observes that like allother laws it is modified in its working bymany circumstances. These circum-stances are peculiar to the capitalist eco-nomic system under consideration. Allcircumstances are not equally important.Only within the framework of a suitableeconomic theory (Marx here offers atheory of the business cycle) does oneknow which circumstances to consider.Furthermore-and this point is central indistinguishing Marx's approach fromthose we have been considering-thetheory itself is changed as the circum-stances are altered through theoreticallyinformed political practice.While Marxist theory can fruitfully berestated in propositional form (for a usefulexample, see Gottheil, 1966), such prop-ositions would have the following char-acteristics: (1) they would be interrelatedwithin a logico-deductive theoreticalframework, and acquire their significanceonly within that framework; hence, theywould resist abstraction to broader, ex-tratheoretical contexts; (2) they would be


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74 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWhighly contingent statements about empir-ical events, mediated by specifiable histor-ical circumstances; (3) they themselveswould change as the circumstanceschanged-theory and practice inform andmodify one another. Turner's formalizedpropositions deliberately possess none ofthese characteristics. Marxism is the con-crete analysis of concrete conditions. Inthis it differs from conventional social sci-ence, which, after the fashion of the hardsciences, seeks after universally valid,highly formalized laws (e.g., f = ma). Be-cause of this, Marxism has a peculiarstatus as a generalizing science. It at-tempts to straddle the methodologicalschism between the idiographic andnomothetic approaches to social phe-nomena. While this makes for consid-erable ambiguity concerning the actual na-ture of a uniquely Marxist method, it alsocontains its unique promise: a theorycapable of comprehending change asinternal to actual sociohistoric systems, afunction of forces which operate at thesame time with lawful necessity whilepermitting a significant role to humanagency in bringing about historical out-comes. To paraphrase Marx, science bothinterprets and changes history and isthereby itself changed in the process.In the remainder of this paper, then, Ishall argue that Marx's work offers aframework for comprehending endoge-nous structural change. The frameworkentails propositions concerning necessaryor lawful relationships. Yet these proposi-tions resist formalization after the fashionof the writers previously reviewed. This isdue both to the highly contingent orspecified nature of Marx's propositionsand to the role assigned political practice.For Marx, political practice has the poten-tial of modifying the conditions which giverise to the socioeconomic laws them-selves. The laws governing social change,unlike the laws of physics or chemistry,do not permit prediction. They ratherconstitute a framework wherein atheoretically-informed, and hence effec-tive, political practice is possible. InMarx's economic equations, the param-eters themselves are treated as variable.The values of the parameters reflect his-torical conditions, in particular the state of

the class struggle. As such, they cannot bepredicted. Consequently, one cannot pre-dict the occurrence or outcomes ofspecific events with the aid of Marxianeconomics. These arguments will be illus-trated by reference to Marx's theory ofthe declining rate of profit in capitalisteconomic production-a theory whichmight well appear to entail highly formalstatements concerning inevitable tenden-cies subject to invariant laws and hencepredictable outcomes. Although someMarxists read Marx in precisely this fash-ion, they are, I believe, mistaken. Marx'seconomic laws are not of this type.9

THEDIALECTICFPRAXISANDSTRUCTURALONSTRAINTS:ARX'SANALYSIS F THEFALLINGRATEOFPROFITMarx analyzed the value of commodityproduction in terms of three elements:constant capital (C), the value of themeans of production used up during theproduction process (primarily the depre-

ciated value of machines, buildings, andraw materials); variable capital (V), thevalue of the labor-power applied to theproduction process (primarily the wagebill); and surplus value (S), the value ofunpaid labor appropriated by the capitalistduring the production process (workers'labor time beyond that which is sociallynecessary to sustain the standard of livingof the working class). Surplus value is thekey to capitalist economic production. Itis the source of all profits, including thosewhich are reinvested in enhanced produc-tive capacity (capital accumulation). Dur-ing the period of competitive capitalism,individual capitalists were under continualeconomic pressure to increase the effi-ciency of production-to produce com-modities at lower unit costs. While thiscould be achieved by economizing oneither of the two principal componentcosts of production, constant or variable

9 Marx's theory of the falling rate of profit is onlyone aspect of his overall theory of the crises ofcapitalist production. The purpose of the presentdiscussion is not to present a thoroughgoing exposi-tion and critique of crises theory, but rather to focuson Marx's original treatment of one principal sourceof crisis in order to better elucidate his method.


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MARX'S THEORY OF THE FALLING RATE OF PROFIT 75capital, Marx (1867:265; 1849:186) be-lieved that in the long runthe key to low-eringproductioncosts lay with mechani-zation.Thismeant ncreasingC relativetoV. Thus, drivenby the economic impera-tive to undersell one's competitors inorder to remain afloat, individualcapitalists would be driven to substituteincreasinglyefficientmachinesfor humanlabor. Throughoutthe economy, there-fore, thereis a long-run endencyfor whatMarxtermedthe organiccompositionofcapital to rise, as denotedby the symbolQ,whereQ = C/(C+ V).'0 This tendency,in turn,madeit possiblefor the remainingworkersto produceever-largerquantitiesof goods with ever-decreasing abortime.As a consequence, there is a parallelten-dency for the rate of surplus value (S'),definedas theratioof unpaidto paidlabortime (S/V), to rise as well.How do these tendencies affect theoverallrateof profit n capitalisteconomicproduction? Marx defines the rate ofprofitas the ratioof surplusvalueto totalcapitaladvanced, or

P = S/(C+V) (1)from which it follows algebraicallythatthe rate of profitcan be decomposedintotwo terms comprisedof the rateof surplusvalueandthe organiccompositionof capi-tal:P = S' (1- Q) (2)

where S' = S/V and Q = C/ (C + V).Marx (1867:449; Marx and Engels,1848:338) argued that a rising organiccompositionwas the hallmarkof capitalistproduction. It follows that as Q ap-

proaches 1, (1 - Q) approaches 0, with aconsequent depressing effect on the over-all rate of profit. On the other hand, inas-much as the reason for mechanization inthe first place is to increase S, the down-ward pressure on profitability resultingfrom rising Q will be partially offset. Tothe extent that S' rises as Q rises, thevalue of P is indeterminate. Marx (1867:247) was well aware of these consid-erations, but argued on logical groundsthat as the organic composition reaches ahigh level, additional increases in produc-tivity (hence S') are inadequate as a strat-egy to maintain profitability (see also1857:338-40 for a crude mathematicalproof). 1 Since capitalism is productionfor profit, once the overall rate of profit(or at least that obtaining in key economicsectors) drops below some minimally ac-ceptable level, production ceases. Fac-tories close down and an economic crisisensues. The profit-maximizing strategy ofindividual capitalists has resulted in aprofitability crisis for the class ofcapitalists as a whole. This is, for Marx, astructural imperative of capitalist eco-nomic production.12 Yet despite the com-

10 Marx generally speaks of the proportion or ratioof c:v; the organic composition of capital is ex-pressed by some writers as c/v (e.g., Mattick, 1969;Mandel, 1968). We shall follow Sweezy's (1968) us-age. He defines the organic composition as the ratioof constant capital to total capital advanced. Recentreformulations of Marx's theory of the declining rateof profit have argued that definitions involving onlythe terms C and V are inadequate, since V is itselfdependent in part on the rate of surplus value(exploitation) (see, e.g., Cogoy, 1973; and Wright,1975). In terms of the arguments raised in this paperconcerning the relationships between the rate ofprofit, the rate of surplus value, and the organiccomposition of capital, it makes no difference whichrepresentation we employ. Our methodological con-clusions are unaffected as well.

II See Wright (1975: 37n) and Yaffe (1973:202) fora mathematical demonstration that as the organiccomposition of capital rises, the rate of profit be-comes progressively less sensitive to changes in therate of exploitation [i.e., surplus value] (Wright,1975: 16). Marx (1867: 232-40) also details a numberof empirical influences which may for a time coun-teract the tendency of the organic composition torise, but these are not judged sufficient in the longrun to mitigate the overall process.12 The crisis itself is an integral partof the dynamicof capitalist production. While it temporarily re-stores profitability through lowering the organiccomposition (see Yaffe, 1973: 205-6 for an elabora-tion), it does so by altering the framework of produc-tion itself, through contributing to the centralizationof capital. Economic crises thus abet the transitionfrom competitive to monopoly capitalism (Marx,1867: 250-1; see Wright, 1975, for an excellent dis-cussion of these processes). Some Marxists (Yaffe,1973;Cogoy, 1973) argue that the falling rate of profitis ultimately the only source of crisis that followsnecessarily from the logic of capitalist production,although of course other factors such as inadequateaggregate demand may shape specific crises. Others(Sweezy, 1968; 1974; Hodgson, 1974) argue thatthere is neither theoretical justification withinMarx's work nor empirical evidence to support sucha law, and that therefore, in Hodgson's (1974:65)words, we are led to abandon the theory of thefalling rate of profit, and along with it all vulgar


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76 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWpelting nature of such an imperative, itsactual working-out depends on concretesociohistorical circumstances. The declin-ing rate of profit is a tendency that man-ifests itself within and through class strug-gle, and not a law which operates auto-matically outside of human practice.In distinguishing tendency from law inMarx's theory, I am attempting to call at-tention to what I believe to be the centralfeature of interest in his method. Marxsought to avoid both the determinism of acompletely materialist science, and thevoluntarism of both idealist philosophyand utopian formulations. He achievedthis by conceptualizing the material condi-tions of action as embedded within interre-lated social, economic, and political struc-tures. At the same time he regards humanaction itself as capable of modifying theunderlying structures and hence the con-ditions of future action. In the example ofthe declining rate of profit during theperiod of competitive capitalism, the prin-cipal structures of analytic interest areeconomic. These include the factory sys-tem, organized such that social labor pro-duces for the profit of the owners of capi-tal; a market economy, in which produc-tion is for individual profit rather than col-lective utility; and overall economicorganization predicated on competitionamong workers for jobs and capitalists formarkets rather than on coordination andcentral social planning. These structuresare organized neither as a congeries ofrandom or accidentally related elements,nor as a determinate system in which allparts possess causal relationships with allothers. Rather, the structures are con-ceived dialectically-a term we are nowin a position to better understand.The dialectic, as utilized by Marx in hiseconomic analyses, refers to a mode ofunderstanding empirical socioeconomicphenomena as necessarily yet contradic-torily interrelated. Such interrelationshipsare unstable and hence must change, al-though within delimited bounds. The rela-tionship between machines and workers,

conceived by Marx as a secular tendencyfor the organic composition of capital torise, is a necessary yet contradictory one.It is necessary only under the historicalgivens of capitalist economic produc-tion: that production is for the profit of thecapitalist-owner of the means of produc-tion; that capitalists compete with one an-other to sell their goods on the market;that workers are free to sell their labor tocapitalists in exchange for a wage, ratherthan control over the productive processitself; that labor-power belongs to thecapitalist for the duration of the workingday, rather than merely that portion of theday necessary to sustain the worker. It iscontradictory in that it is inherently un-stable: it is impossible to sustain a risingorganic composition of capital indefinitelywithout undermining the necessary prof-itability on which capitalist productionrests. The various requirements of profit-able production, dictated by the need foreconomic survival under capitalist eco-nomic organization, are mutually incom-patible. Each individual capitalist mustsell his commodities at the market price orbelow, or suffer a decline in sales to hiscompetitors. To do so, he must contin-ually seek ways to produce a larger vol-ume of goods at lower unit costs, for thatis what his competitors are doing. Thisrequirement, in turn, engenders yet an-other; the need for productivity increases.Thus, the individual capitalist musteconomize, and increase the output perworker through the substitution of labor-saving technologies. Over the economy asa whole, however, this has the long-runconsequence of lowering profitability andhence undermining production itself.Periodic crises are thus structured intocapitalist production.While the overall tendency of the con-tradiction can be deduced analyticallyfrom the givens of capitalist economicproduction, its concrete movement can-not. That depends on historically-specificcircumstances. How is it that the basicconditions of the contradiction, the giv-ens of capitalist economic production,can be modified? How is it possible tohave a scientific theory of economic crisisthat admits of historically-specific cir-cumstances? These two questions are re-

notions of capital and capital accumulation. It is notthe intention of the present paper to join that debate,although I find the arguments in favor of the neces-sity of the law to be unconvincing.


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MARX'S THEORY OF THE FALLING RATE OF PROFIT 77lated, for they both go to the root of thedialectic as a science of the historicallyconcrete-a science that is not predicatedon universal laws and predictive state-ments. We have thus far considered thedialectic as if it applied only to an externalworld of workers and owners, human andmechanical labor-in a word, the produc-tive process. In other words, we have thusfar treated the dialectic naturalistically.Marx, however, treated capitalist eco-nomic production, conceived as the rela-tionship between constant and variablecapital, as the unfolding of capitalist socialrelations among people rather than as nat-uralistic relations among land, workingbodies, and machines. That is why his keyconceptual building blocks (C, V, and S)cannot be regarded as independent vari-ables in a predictive equation. Rather,they are at once analytic categories forunderstanding structural relationshipsand tendencies, and political indicators ofthe degree of the class struggle. This lat-ter point is the key to understandingMarx's method, and can be illustrated byreturning to the example of the decliningrate of profit.

Equations (1) and (2) tell us a number ofthings about the rate of profit. First, theyshow that the rate of profit consists ofspecific relationships between constantcapital, variable capital, and surplusvalue. Given values for C, V, and S, therate of profit is directly determined. Thus,on this first level of understanding, theequations serve the customary role ofsuch equations in all science: a formalrepresentation of an empirical event. Likeall such representations, they have theproperty of abstracting away from con-crete phenomena to mathematical sym-bolism. The symbolic rendition, manipu-lated according to mathematical rules,permits deductions to be drawn.This leads us directly to a second levelof understanding. The postulated relation-ships among the terms in the equationsconstitute a theory about the world. Inparticular, in defining the rate of profit inthis way, Marx is arguing that the rate ofprofit is directly proportional to the massof surplus extracted from labor, and in-versely proportional to the capital ad-vanced. Inasmuch as Marx conceptualizes

surplus as unpaid labor time, this defini-tion has far-reaching implications. Itsuggests that to the extent that living labor(V) is replaced by past or dead labor in theform of machinery (C), surplus value andhence profits will dry up, at least to theextent that increases in the rate of surplusvalue (S') prove inadequate to offset thenecessarily rising organic composition(Q). Thus, given Marx's theory about theworld, it is possible to deduce certainnecessary relationships among the ele-ments that constitute the world.At these first two levels there is no dif-ference between Marx's method and themethods of science in general-both thenatural sciences and the conventional so-cial sciences which model themselves onhard scientific methodology. The dif-ference between Marx's method and sci-entistic ones emerges when one asks thequestion, Under what conditions is a ris-ing organic composition likely to actuallyoutstrip a rising rate of surplus value?Such conditions are not deducible math-ematically from the equations for the rateof profit; nor can they be derived from anyother equations in Marx's theory. Rather,such conditions are the result of humanactivity; in particular, the state of thestruggle between labor and capital. Thelocus of this struggle is denoted by S V,and C.

Surplus value (S), for example, is thearena of the struggle between workers andcapital over the duration of the workingday and the intensity of the labor process.That is why Marx (1867: chaps. 7-9), afterintroducing the concepts of C, V, and S inCapital, immediately proceeds to a dis-cussion of the concept of absolute surplusvalue and a lengthy historical expositionof the struggle over the working day (1867:chap. 10). That is also why he follows theintroduction of the concept of relativesurplus value (1867: chap. 12) with docu-mented discussion of the intensity of thelabor process in modern industry (1867:chaps. 15, 17). The outcome of the classstruggle over the disposition of the surplusis not derivative from the theoretical con-ceptualization of capitalist production, al-though it is certainly shaped by the condi-tions of production. For example, theconcentration of workers in factories


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78 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWfacilitates their revolutionary combina-tion, due to association (Marx andEngels, 1848:345). Rather, the outcome ofthat struggle, which occurs within theframework of structural conditions repre-sented in formal equations, is ultimately aproduct of unique historical circum-stances. The degree of working-class con-sciousness and political mobilization; thelevel of theoretical understanding of theworking class and its leaders; the ability ofcapital to extract surplus from foreignworkers to the advantage of domesticworkers in relatively industrialized na-tions; the extent to which monopolizationalters the ability of major capitalists toamass large surpluses while retarding theincrease of the organic composition ofcapital-these and other factors will affectthe disposition of the surplus according toempirical conditions.Variable capital (V) draws our attentionto another set of struggles: those having todo with the wage bill and workers' subsis-tence in general. The numerical valuestaken on by this term will reflect the de-gree to which labor is able to resist capi-tal's efforts to depress its value. Theseefforts, as we have seen, take the form ofcheapening the means of subsistence, re-ducing all labor to unskilled detail labor(and hence reducing the costs of subsis-tence by making it possible for all mem-bers of the family to work), depressingwages below their value, and shiftingproduction to colonies with a ready sourceof cheap labor. Labor's success in thisstruggle depends, in turn, on its degree oforganization and militancy. It dependsupon the strength of unions, the access ofthe labor organizations to parliamentaryinstitutions, and the degree of inter-nationalization of the working-classmovement (which means, for Marx, theCommunist party). It also depends on thedegree of tolerance for organized labor onthe part of capital: whether or not labor isruthlessly suppressed, legitimately ac-cepted as part of the political structure, oreven co-opted into its leadership. It is pre-cisely because none of these conditions isderivative directly from the economicconditions that Marx stressed the centralimportance of organizing the internationalCommunist movement as the only viable

means to shape those conditions to theadvantage of the working class, and de-voted much of his political life to doing so(see, for example, Marx and Engels, 1848:345-6, 361-2).The final set of struggles, those havingto do with constant capital (C), concernthe extensiveness of capitalist economicrelations. As we have seen, the numericalvalues taken on by this term reflect in parttechnological conditions (e.g., the extentto which labor-saving technologies arecapital-saving as well), in part the organ-ization of production (e.g., the rate of cap-ital turnover), and in part the ability of

capitalists to extend capitalist economicrelations abroad (e.g., foreign investment,which permits the importation of cheapraw materials and machinery producedwith low-paid foreign labor). The value ofconstant capital in Marx's equations willalso reflect the sociopolitical organizationof capitalists as a class. It will reflect theintensity of competition among capitals,the degree of cooperation and centraliza-tion among the owners of large capital,and the extensiveness of capitals' ideolog-ical and political hegemony. This, in turn,draws attention to the role of the state insecuring capitalist economic relations-the degree to which it is relatively auton-omous or serves simply as an instrumentof a unified ruling class, its executivecommittee (Marx and Engels, 1848:337).Again, such circumstances cannot be di-rectly predicted on the basis of underlyingeconomic conditions, although such con-ditions limit and shape the range of possi-ble choices available to capitalists, actingindividually or in concert as a class.The struggle over the disposition of thesurplus, workers' share in output, andcapitalists' control over the political andideological spheres and the productiveprocess are merely different aspects of theclass struggle. That struggle is not purelyeconomic, although it depends to a largeextent on economic conditions and affectsthose conditions most directly. The classstruggle, as seen by Marx, also moves atthe political and cultural levels. Thepossibilities of delegitimation of the stateand dereification of both popular and sci-entific culture flow from economic strug-gles, and shape those struggles. That is


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MARX'S THEORY OF THE FALLING RATE OF PROFIT 79why theory itself becomes a material forcewhen it has seized the masses (Marx,1843:18).

There is nothing automatic about theprocesses of social change. This is true ofthe stages of societal developmentoften attributed to Marx, as well as ofmore historically bounded economiclaws (e.g., that of the falling rate ofprofit under capitalism). The movement ofconcrete societies occur within well-defined structural limits. Those limits aregiven for capitalist forms, within Marxistpolitical economy, by the hypothesized re-lationships among the parameters C, V,and S. But those limits can be changed,the relationships among parameters them-selves can change in value independentlyof their necessary connection within for-mal equations. This is because C, V, andS, while serving as economic parameters,are ultimately conceptualized by Marx assignifying social relations, of which thequantitative economic measures (hours oflabor time, price) are merely surface indi-cators. Social relations can be altered,within bounds. Those bounds are, forMarx, first and foremost the structuralconditions of economic production. Thestructural conditions generate problems(contradictions), and set limits to the solu-tion of those problems. The solutions tothe problems of competitive capitalismhistorically involved the emergence ofmonopoly capitalism and economic im-perialism. These solutions, in turn,engender their own structuralframeworks, replete with their ownhistorically-specific contradictions de-manding new solutions if the stability ofthe system was to be maintained (seeBaran and Sweezy, 1966; Mattick, 1969;Wright, 1975; and O'Connor, 1973). Thelikelihood and efficacy of any economicsolution depend, in large part, on thelegitimacy accorded to the growing stateintervention with its mounting economiccosts and on political consciousness andclass militancy in general. Crises oflegitimation, dereification, class organiza-tion and struggle may grow out of adverseeconomic conditions or equally adversesolutions to such conditions, but they arenot reducible to economic factors. The fu-ture cannot be predicted from within a

Marxist framework; it can only be shaped.It can be shaped scientifically to the ex-tent that actions are based on adequatetheoretical understanding of economic,political, and cultural structures. Theterms scientific and theoretical,however, must be understood in the lim-ited sense developed in this paper. Marx-ist theory is a theory of structural con-straints and probable tendencies whichcan themselves be shaped and altered byhuman praxis.As a theory of social change, Marxismthus resists formalization after the fashionof the writers considered in the first partof this paper. It makes little sense to speakof a dialectical perspective on endogenousstructural change, apart from the Marxisttheoretical framework as applied tospecified socioeconomic conditions.While it is certainly possible that a dialec-tic might be developed apart from suchnotions as surplus value, production forexchange, and class conflict, it is by nomeans self-evident that such a dialecticwould remain fruitful for sociologicalanalysis. The arguments and examplesthus far offered to this end are unconvinc-ing. A more promising approach wouldappear to lie within the Marxist paradigmitself. One might begin with the concep-tual categories of Marxism and apply themempirically to contemporary conditions.As indicated previously, there is evidencethat Marxist theory is gaining increasedacceptance in the United States. The levelof theoretical discussions is considerablyadvanced over that of only a decade ago.The level of empirical research, informedby that perspective, however, remainsminimal. Should a comparable upsurge insuch research occur, then we can expectuseful revisions in theory itself. Buttheoretical and methodological advancesare tied to theoretically informed re-search. They do not result from for-malized borrowings, however more palat-able such an approach may be to Ameri-can social scientists.

REFERENCESAppelbaum, Richard1970 Theories of Social Change, Chicago: Mark-ham.


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80 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWBaran, Paul A. and Paul Sweezy1966 Monopoly Capital. New York: MonthlyReview.Cogoy, Mario1973 The fall of the rate of profit and the theoryof accumulation: a reply to Paul Sweezy.

Bulletin of the Conference of SocialistEconomists 52-67.Dahrendorf, Ralf1959 Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Soci-ety. Stanford: Stanford University Press.1964 Towards a theory of social conflict. Pp.98-111 in Amitai and Eva Etzioni (eds.),Social Change. New York: Basic Books.Durkheim, Emile1964 The Division of Labor in Society. NewYork: Basic Books.Gottheil, Fred M.1966 Marx's Economic Predictions. Evanston:Northwestern University Press.Hodgson, Geoff1974 The theory of the falling rate of profit.New Left Review 84: 55-82.Kaufmann, Walter1965 Hegel. New York: Doubleday.Lukacs, Georgy1971 History and Class Consciousness. Cam-bridge, Ma.: Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology Press.Mandel, Ernest1968 Marxist Economic Theory. 2 Vols. NewYork: Monthly Review.

Marx, Karl[1867] Capital, Vol. 1. New York: International1967 Publishers.[1843] Critique of Hegel's philosophy of right.1972 Pp. 11-23 in Robert C. Tucker (ed.), TheMarx-Engels Reader. New York: Norton.[1849] Wage labour and capital. Pp. 167-90 in1972 Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Marx-EngelsReader. New York: Norton.[1857] Grundrisse. New York: Vintage.1973Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels[1848] Communist Manifesto. Pp. 331-62 in

1972 Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Marx-EngelsReader. New York: Norton.Mattick, Paul1969 Marx and Keynes: The Limits of the MixedEconomy. Boston: Porter Sargent.O'Connor, James1973 The Fiscal Crisis of the State. New York:St. Martin's.Rytina, Joan Huber and Charles P. Loomis1970 Marxist dialectic and pragmatism: poweras knowledge. American Sociological Re-view 35: 308-18.Schneider, Louis1971 Dialectic in sociology. AmericanSociological Review 36: 667-78.Sweezy-, Paul1968 The Theory of Capitalist Development.New York: Monthly Review.1974 Some problems in the theory of capitalist

accumulation. Monthly Review 26:1.Turner, Jonathan1973 From utopia to where? A strategy for re-formulating the Dahrendorf conflictmodel. Social Forces 52: 236-44.1974 The Structure of Sociological Theory.Homewood, II.: Dorsey.1975a A strategy for reformulatingthe dialecticaland functional theories of conflict. SocialForces 53: 433-44.1975b Marx and Simmel revisited: recessing thefoundations of social conflict theory. So-cial Forces 53: 618-27.Van den Berghe, Pierre1963 Dialectic and functionalism: toward atheoretical synthesis. American Sociolog-ical Review 28: 695-705.Wright, Eric Olin1975 Alternative perspectives in the Marxisttheory of accumulation and crisis. The In-surgent Sociologist 6: 5-39.Yaffe, David S.1973 The Marxian theory of crisis, capital, andthe state. Economy and Society 2: 186-232.

MANUSCRIPTSFOR THEASA ROSE SOCIOLOGYSERIESManuscripts ( 100 to 300 typed pages) are solicited for publication inthe ASA Arnold and Caroline Rose Monograph Series. The Serieswelcomes a variety of types of sociological work-qualitative orquantitative empirical studies, and theoretical or methodologicaltreatises. An author should submit three copies of a manuscriptforconsideration to the Series Editor, Professor Robin M. Williams, Jr.,Department of Sociology, Cornell University,Ithaca, New York 14853.

appelbaum (1978) - marx's theory of the falling rate of profit

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