> his analysis on the accumulation of capital has never been disputed
Within a Malthusian, i.e. zero or close to zero real growth, economy. And assuming no wealth transfers, e.g. welfare and taxation. Or bankruptcies and recessions, i.e. where accumulated "fake" capital is destroyed. Or limits to economies of scale, i.e. where "the larger capitals beat the smaller" [1], e.g. diminishing marginal returns or even antitrust.
Overaccumulation ("when the rate of profit is greater than the rate of new profitable investment outlets in the economy") is analogous to starvation (population growth > food supply growth).
It turns out we were able to both increase food supply more than Malthus expected and the profitable investment outlets more than Marx expected. (We're also better at moderating population growth and destroying surplus capital than either expected. Both predicted proximate doom where it didn't appear.)
Malthusianism and Marxism are also both discredited (albeit not useless) economic models from empirical and theoretical perspectives.
I'll take that as "nothing." Marx's analysis on the accumulation of capital has nothing to do with Malthus.
You haven't even answered my question. Why would I waste my time?
That said, Marx was a 19th century economist. Just like every other 19th century economist, he did not have a time machine and did not predict neoliberalism or modern financialized economies, which are still in their first test run. Hold your horses, sweetheart.
Having read Marx, it's important to understand that the political economy he discusses although founded on LTV, is substrate independent, ie: it could just as well be affixed on top of marginalism. The reason that no one has done so is that it doesn't matter and wouldn't change anyone's minds.
The interplay between social relations and economic relations are the entire point of the body of work and are entirely separate from any particular conceptualization of economics.
It's a much more mature and honest stance to say, yeah, he was wrong about this minutia, but right on these other things.
> he was wrong about this minutia, but right on these other things
I totally agree. And in a technical sense, his work is correct. If we didn't do wealth transfers or antitrust enforcement and had prolonged low or zero real growth, what he predicts would happen. (Same with Malthus.)
The point is those minutiae matter. Which is why, as a philosophy, Marxism holds its own. As an economic theory, it doesn't. Calling his theories on capital accumulation undisputed is simply wrong.
I guess it depends on what you think he predicts would happen. If it's workers revolting against capitalists, then sure, the trickle of bread works to diffuse this. If it's that economic relations would continue to define class relations, then he was absolutely spot on.
Marx's analysis biggest weakness is actually housing, and it shows. He uses a two-factor model of production, land and capital, and completely ignores land as a factor of production with characteristics quite dissimilar from capital. (At least on the broad economic sense, land is quite different, even if in accounting it is pretty much capital.)
His later parts of Capital Part 3 on the class of landowners was good, but he never finished it. The first directive of the Communicst Manifesto, confiscating and redistributing land rents, was something that would have actually helped capitalism quite a bit to be more productive and improve everyone's life.
A housing situation like the modern US would have been ridiculous for any 19th century European to write about. Having most of a population living in homes occupied by their owners was unheard of and irrelevant at that time and/or place. Popular home ownership comprises a uniquely American political strategy.
Calling this a "weakness" is just laughable. What other 19th century thinkers are you holding to the standards of a God?
Those are both American countries, but that isn't necessarily the point, which is a historical one. Tapping bits of seemingly infinite natural resources to expand land-owning constituencies has played an overwhelming role in the history of the United States and all over the New World.
There are more than two countries on that list. Most aren’t in the Americas.
Laos, Romania, Kazakhstan, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Macedonia, Vietnam, China, Serbia, Lithuania, Russia, Singapore, Poland, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Taiwan, Latvia, Oman, Estonia, Malta, Norway, Thailand, Czechia, Portugal, Malaysia, Slovenia, Spain, Egypt, Kenya, Italy, Iceland, Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Ireland, the EU as a whole, Cyprus, South Africa, Finland and Australia each have higher homeownership rates than the United States.
Except many European countries have significantly higher home ownership rates than the US.
Belgium for instance which has been one of the most intensively economically developed areas over the last 700 years higher he ownership and interestingly both one of the highest median wealth per capita AND lowest(!) wealth inequality in the developed world.
That’s pretty much the opposite of what you’d expect (of course you won’t reply to this comment now).
Karl Marx showed us exactly how the scam works over 150 years ago and his analysis on the accumulation of capital has never been disputed.