ABSTRACT
As we have seen, the procurement of surplus-value, the striving for profits, represents a fundamental feature of capitalism. However, it would be wrong to assume that the profit motive alone constitutes the essence of capitalism. The pursuit of profit has, as Max Weber once remarked, existed ‘amongst all sort and conditions of men, in all ages and in all countries of the world’. For Weber what distinguishes the pursuit of profit in capitalism from profit-making activities in non-capitalistic economic systems is that capitalism seeks ‘the pursuit of profit by means of continuing rational capitalistic enterprise: that is …the constant renewal of profit, or “profitability”’ (Weber 1978:333). However, Weber’s remarks here seem to imply that the goal of capitalist enterprise is only to seek a perpetual reproduction of a given rate of profit. This suggests that once attained across a particular economy these stable profits would ensure a certain measure of economic, and presumably social, homoeostasis. But the clear historical evidence of regular economic crises in capitalist societies, often following on from periods of relatively stable profitability, should alert us to the fact that the mere reproduction of profit is in itself not the end goal of capitalism. The essential logic of capitalism manifests itself as a compulsion for the constant accumulation of capital and, even more accurately perhaps, as an insatiable appetite for accelerating the rate at which this accumulation occurs. This demands that profits are not only reproduced through the repeated circulation of capital, but also expanded regularly. The full implications which follow from this are legion, their consequences restricted not only to the economic sphere, but often impinging dramatically upon all areas of human activity. In this chapter I discuss the logic of accumulation and its social consequences. This discussion will provide a conceptual basis for a more concrete examination of twentieth-century capitalism which will be undertaken in the following chapters.
