The question which comes up now is to know why, at some given moment, the commodities are not bought anymore, causing the blocking of the accumulation process.
First, the employers want to accumulate, thus to increase the surplus-value produced (therefore exploit more the workers), to incorporate it in the capital to accumulate more in the next step and get a profit in constant progression. It is that way that they can become rich and powerful. And if ever they wouldn’t like to follow this path, the competition will push them for it, since a big capital accumulates faster than a small one and tends to eliminate the latter. Marx specifies: ´Accumulation for accumulation’s sake, production for production’s sake: by this formula classical economy expressed the historical mission of the bourgeoisie.(…) If to classical economy, the proletarian is but a machine for the production of surplus-value; on the other hand, the capitalist is in its eyes only a machine for the conversion of this surplus-value into additional capital.ª (12)
To accumulate, the capitalist must ceaselessly expand the level of production. That means to invest in new buildings, new factories, new machines. The most visible aspect of this phenomena is the construction of new production facilities.
The decision to accumulate is individual, proper to each capitalist. It takes place in indirect relation with the competitors. It is not because the rival built a factory of such kind for such particular product that the capitalist will not build a quasi identical one. It is even the opposite which happens. Because the goal is not to satisfy a need but to make a profit. Thus if the competitor embarks on a slot, that means that there is probably a market to take and for the employer of a company that means the obligation to get also involved in it.
In the car industry, the market of monospace was non-existent in Europe in 1985. But, since, it has strongly developed. Therefore all the manufacturers have set a new factory to be able to produce this kind of vehicles: Fiat and Peugeot in North of France, Volkswagen and Ford in Portugal. etc. Result: the overcapabilities worsen, because the purchasers don’t buy generally a monospace more but they replace another car, which has been produced in another factory.
But, if there are too many factories, too many capabilities with respect to what the consumers can buy, the capitalist will do his best in order that the other firms suffer the consequences: they have to reduce the price of their commodities, realising thus losses which will lead them to close workshops, even factories, thus dismissing workers.
In 1977, that is three years after the burst of the crisis in the iron industry, the president of Cockerill at that time, Julien Charlier, expressed this anarchy: ´Our industry suffers heavily today of overcapabilities resulting from a parochial management of the investments. Yesterday, everyone wanted his modern rolling-mill without much worrying about the machines which already existed by the neighbour, neither about the real capabilities of absorption by the market. One sees now where that too micro-economic policy led the European iron industry.ª(13) That ‘parochial management’ is compulsory under capitalism: it comes from the private property of the means of production. It is it which leads each capitalist to increase his profits, to accumulate and always produce more, even if the effect is a general overproduction, an overcapability that the market will not be able to absorb.
Second element: to accumulate, the capitalists must create a bigger and bigger surplus-value, that is to say exploit more the workers. It is the case by the increase of productivity, that each employer is actively looking for. Thanks to this, the capitalists can produce more commodities in the same period of time, without necessarily extracting this increase from a supplementary spending of human labour (even if it is usually related). (14) It is a matter of new technical means, which are introduced and allow an increase of the production.
In clear, for a same production, the capitalists substitute means of production, essentially machines, for labouring powers. But this can entail an increase of the production, which can have as a consequence that the employment doesn’t decrease, nay, even slightly increases. Thus, a car factory with 4,000 workers can produce 200,000 cars a year. Its productivity will amount to 50 cars a year and a person. (15) If the production goes to 300,000 cars a year, but the employment to 5,000 workers, the productivity will have increased to 60 cars a year and a person (16). Employment is more important in absolute terms but not in relative terms, that is to say, with respect to the production.
This phenomena expresses well an increase of the exploitation. The salary received by the workers decreases relatively. The value of the labouring power doesn’t change in terms of purchasing power. The workers produce more products but what they buy tends to be still at the same level (or to increase in a lesser proportion than the production). Therefore they receive a lesser part of what is produced. The part which grows is the surplus-value, hoarded by the capitalists.
The capitalists try to increase the exploitation by other means. They pay the workers below the value of the labouring power. They try to lengthen the day of work by introducing supplementary hours, work according to demand (17) and work during the week-end. They intensify the labour. Each time, the not paid labour increases to produce more commodities, thus more values hoarded by the employers.
That brings us to the third element. Pushed by the capitalists who try to accumulate more and more, the workers produce ceaselessly bigger and bigger quantities of commodities. But, by the increase of the productivity and the other forms of exploitation, they can only consume a smaller and smaller part of this production, even if this consumption can increase in absolute terms.
Let’s suppose that the 4 millions of Belgian workers produce a value of final commodities of 8,000 billions of Belgian francs a year. Each of them earns 1.5 million (18) during the same lapse of time. Together their salaries amount thus to 6,000 billions of Belgian francs. They have therefore the possibility to consume 6,000 of the 8,000 billions of the produced commodities, the capitalists (which are just a handful) consume the other 2,000 billions. By the increase in productivity and the intensification of labour, the workers increased the produced value of the final commodities to 10,000 billions of Belgian francs. But their salaries stay blocked. That means that they still consume 6,000 billions, but this time over a total sum of 10,000 billions. That means that the capitalists have increased their part to 4,000 billions. But can they consume it?
It is the fourth element. Pushed by the competition, the employers will tend to dedicate more and more money to the investment and not to the consumption. They will spend larger and larger sums to the purchase of machines, factories, which will allow them to beat the competitors but not to absorb the produced commodities of final consumption. They will carry on producing, whereas they should consume (if their goal was to ensure the more or less harmonious working of the system). Instead of buying the 2,000 billions of francs of supplementary final commodities, they will strive hard to increase again the global amount of produced commodities, bringing it to, for example, 12,000 billions of francs. That looks absurd and it is. But is the result of the anarchy generated by the private ownership of the companies: every capitalist reacts with respect to his individual interest to realise the highest gain as possible at the expenses of his competitor and not with respect to a planification according to the needs. Anyway, by the exploitation, the part which goes back to the capitalist increases and the needs of this handful of employers are not extensible to the point that they could absorb the increase in the production that their aspirations to accumulation impose to the society.
In these circumstances — and this is the fifth element —, every capitalist will try individually to increase again the exploitation to be able to get rid of his rivals. He will increase again the productivity, that is to say he will accelerate more the process of substitution of men by machines. As this is the workers who produce the value of the commodities, consequently the capitalists reduce relatively the basis on which they extract their profit, that is the surplus-value. Their rate of profit tends to decrease and will end by diminishing effectively. Which will incite them to get more exploitation out, thus accelerating the process. Their investments will carry more on the rationalisations, that is to say to replace the workers by machines, more and more costly but more and more high-performance. The capitalists will put more their money in the financial markets, at some time more lucrative. All this to raise their rate of profit individually. Losing of sight that globally the elimination of workers of the production process undermines the basis on which their gains stand, that is the creation of surplus-value, and that the hypertrophied development of the financial markets can only keep on if the production grows permanently.
Consequently, at some given time, the final commodities will not be bought because the workers will not be able to do it and the capitalists, dimmed by profit, will not be willing to do it. At the same time, the sector which produces the means of production will have been more developed than the one of the goods of consumption. There will be too many machines with respect to the production which will be able to be sold. There will be overproduction as well in the products of consumption as in those which serve to the production.
The crisis of overproduction stands thus well at the heart of the capitalist system. It is based on the process of accumulation and on the growing exploitation that the employers extract from the labour of the workers. As Marx writes: ´The ultimate reason for all real crises always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses as opposed to the drive of capitalist production to develop the productive forces as though only the absolute consuming power of society constituted their limit.ª (19)
