A Marxist Theory of the Business Cycle

Abstract

Marxists of different views have debated several different theories of the business cycle. This article attempts to combine several different approaches, relying on those elements of each that appear to accord best with the empirical data. The facts of income distribution over the cycle show that the profit share rises in the first half of expansion, but declines long before the peak. Short-run productivity is limited by a fall in capacity utilization before the peak (which is related to the slower increase in demand than of output). So the rate of profit is reduced by declines in both capacity utilization and in the profit share.