International Communist Current

The International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (IBRP) has replied in International Communist Review no.13 to our polemical article “The IBRP’s Conception of decadence in capitalism” which appeared in our International Review no.79. In International Review no.82 we published the first part of this article, which demonstrated the negative implications of the IBRP’s conception of imperialist war as a means for the devaluation of capital and the renewal of the cycles of accumulation. In this second part we are going to analyse the economic theory that sustains this conception: the theory of the tendential fall in the rate of profit.

We are publishing below a letter that we have received from one of our close contacts, in disagreement with our position on the economic foundations of capitalism’s decadence. The letter is followed by our reply, and we will publish the second part of this correspondence in the next issue.

The economic convulsions and avalanche of job losses that are sweeping over workers throughout the world and principally in the most industrialised countries are casting a clear shadow of doubt over the endless propaganda about the “good health” and “bright future” of this social system and generating a justified concern about the future.

We are publishing below the second part of the correspondence begun in the previous issue of the Review, sent to us by one of our contacts in disagreement with our position on the economic explanation for capitalism’s decadence.

Bukharin, Raya Dunayeskavya and other critics of Rosa Luxemburg cited by the comrade, say that she was wrong to look for external reasons for the crisis of capitalism.  However, the world market and the pre-capitalist economies are not external to the system: they are the environment for its development and confrontations...