Modern Capitalism – The Marxist View: Part 6 Treachery!! Предательство!! The feared “Soviet” secret service, the KGB, was always controlled by the the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency of the USA). As such, the CIA - KGB played an insidious and decisive role in the destruction of the Soviet Union. The KGB's successor in conspiracy, the “Russian” secret service FSB (ФСБ - Федеральная служба «безопасности» России) is likewise controlled by the CIA. Among the manifold CIA – FSB tasks in stifling Arnold Lockshin is to block almost all commentaries sent in response to my material on the internet. Arnold Lockshin, political exile from the USA living in Russia ФСБ - Федеральная служба «безопасности» России - по приказу своего секретного постоянного хозяина - американского ЦРУ блокирует почти все отправленные мне комментарии. И это далеко не всё. Арнольд Локшин, Политэмигранта из США ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////\\ Tendency for the equalization of profits. While capitalists within each branch of industry compete with each other, there is also competition among different spheres to obtain the greatest profit from investment. Capital therefore tends to flow from areas of low to higher profitability, which tends to equalize the rates of profit in branches with varying organic composition of capital. Tendency for the rate of profit to fall. The process of accumulation in extended reproduction and the continual modernization of the means of production lead to the gradual growth of constant capital in relation to variable capital. Mutually competing capitalists seek to lower the cost of their production by introducing labor-saving machinery, whereby more goods can be produced with the use of less labor-power. “Accumulation itself and the concentration of capital that goes with it is a material means of increasing productiveness (productivity - AL). Now this growth of the means of production includes the growth of the working population, the creation of a working population which corresponds to the surplus-capital or even exceeds its general requirements, thus leading to an over-population of workers... The causes which concentrate masses of laborers under the command of individual capitalists are the very same that swell the mass of the invested fixed capital and auxiliary and raw materials, in mounting proportion as compared to the mass of employed living labor (Capital, Vol III, p. 218-219). Modernization of the means of production is not the only means of reducing labor costs Among the other factors are “increasing the intensity of exploitation” (Vol. III, p. 232-235) and “depression of wages below the value of labor power” (Vol. III, p. 235). Marx adds: “As concerns capital invested in colonies, etc., they may yield higher rates of profit for the simple reason that the rate of profit is higher there due to backward development and likewise the exploitation of labor, because of the use of slaves, coolies, etc.» (Vol. III, p. 238). Depression of wages below the cost of labor-power “is one of the most important factors checking the tendency of the rate of profit to fall” (Vol. III, p. 235). All of this and other counteracting tendencies notwithstanding, “the gradual growth of constant capital in relation to variable capital must necessarily lead to a gradual fall of the general rate of profit, so long as the rate of surplus-value or the intensity of exploitation of labor by capital remains the same” (Vol III, p. 218-219). While the rate of profit profit (surplus value) to total invested capital, constant and variable tends to decrease, the absolute mass or profit may increase, especially during “boom” periods. More relevant quotations from Marx: “The sane development of the social productiveness of labor expresses itself with the progress of capitalist production, on the one had in a tendency of the rate of profit to fall progressively and, on the other hand, in a progressive growth of the absolute mass of the appropriated surplus- value, or profit... On a capitalist foundation, the increasing productiveness of labor necessarily and permanently creates a seeming over-population of laboring people” (Vol III, p. 223) “To overcome the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, the bourgeois attempt to intensify the exploitation of workers who are able to find work and to reduce their workforce to the minimum, creating the potential of an ever larger army of unemployed, a 'surplus population'.. the capitalist mode of production involves a tendency towards absolute development of the productive forces, regardless of the value and surplus-value it contains” (Vol III, p. 249). In advanced capitalist society, virtually all areas of production become progressively modernized, requiring relatively greater capital expenditures for constant capital compared to variable capital. “A drop in the rate of profit is attended by a rise in the minimum capital required for the productive employment of labor” (Vol III, p. 250).