ABSTRACT
Based on the “inevitable collapse” vs. “perpetuation” or even “stationary state” of capitalism debate, this chapter shows Marxian analysis as a major advance in crisis theories, through a dual demonstration: i) of the conditions of equilibrium in relation to capital accumulation; ii) of the processes of disequilibrium and crisis as phenomena inherent to the system. Economic crisis is, therefore, simultaneously the end and the beginning, the disruption of equilibrium and rebalancing, and becomes the essential element of a dynamic understood as capitalism's ability to temporarily but periodically overcome its contradictions. In this way, Marx constructs the concept of “crisis” and, through its regulatory function, provides the basis for a theory of the economic cycle in which crisis is henceforth grasped as a moment in the cycle, its turning point. He thus specifies the embryo of a theoretical model of cyclical and periodic movements endowed with intrinsic rationality, i.e. laws of change operating for an almost decennial period, according to three dimensions: i) evolutions of the “industrial reserve army”, i.e. the labour dimension, ii) the dynamics of the rate of profit and the rate of interest,i.e. the financial dimension, iii) the rotation of fixed capital, i.e. the technological dimension.
