ABSTRACT
The organic explanation of crises was the so-called underconsumption interpretation. Its exponents distrusted excessive saving and affirmed that capitalism tends to overproduction. The underconsumptionist authors also believed that productive consumption–that is the consumption necessary for accumulation–cannot grow beyond certain limits. Sismondi anticipated Marx in seeing that capitalist production is marked by a radical, irresolvable conflict between the natural end of accumulation and its actual result. Accumulation, he wrote, aims at happiness, which should derive from the increase of wealth. Malthus showed a certain diffidence towards industry but had great confidence in agriculture. Like Ricardo, he believed that rent increases along with accumulation. Hobson can be taken as an exemplary case of the confusion that the concept of underconsumption can generate if left too vague. Hobson can hardly be defined underconsumptionist, at least in the sense we have attributed to this word. Classical underconsumption theories implied the conviction that productive consumption cannot grow beyond a certain fixed level.
