Expanding the scale of production on the existing technological: basis: simple accumulation

Along with Bauer we assumed that each year there are technological changes going on which mean that constant capital is expanding more rapidly than variable capital. However production is not always expanded on the basis of a higher organic composition. Capitalists may expand production on the existing technological basis for an extended period of time.

In such cases we are dealing with simple accumulation where the growth of constant capital proceeds in step with variable capital — the expansion of capital exerts a proportional attraction on workers. Of course, the technological foundations of capitalism are being constantly improved and the organic composition is always changing. Nevertheless these changes are ‘continually interrupted by periods of rest, during which there is a mere quantitative extension of factories on the existing technical basis’ (Marx, 1954, p. 423).

As the accumulation of capital advances these periods of rest become progressively shorter. However to the extent that such periods of rest occur, they imply a weakening of the breakdown tendency. Marx writes:

This constant expansion of capital, hence also an expansion of production, on the basis of the old method of production which goes quietly on while new methods are already being introduced at its side, is another reason why the rate of profit does not fall as much as the total capital of society grows. (1959, p. 263)

We shall see that as world market antagonisms intensify, technological superiority is the sole means of surviving on the world market. The sharper the struggle on the world market the greater the compulsion behind technological changes, so that the intermediate pauses are shortened. Gradually this counteracting factor becomes less and less important.