Marx e a contradição capitalista : atualidade de uma problemática clássica

Abstract

This dissertation aims to highlight the contradictory nature of capitalist society. To this end, it begins with Karl Marx's critique of political economy, emphasizing his critique of Jean-Baptiste Say. Centrally, it draws attention to the incoherent relationship between the constitutive economic moments of the capitalist economy, where circulation assumes a generalized position between production and consumption. In this context, it contextualizes the so-called Say's Law within the economic history of the early 19th century. Among other things, it concludes that: (a) with the publication of Jean-Baptiste Say's Treatise on Political Economy [1803], the origin of vulgar economics is related not only to the development of class struggle, but also to the intensification of capitalist contradictions, expressed in the economic crises immediately following the English industrial revolution and its spread to other European countries; (b) Say's so-called law introduces a new form of historical anachronism into political economy, which represents the relationship between production and consumption that existed in pre-capitalist societies within the capitalist economy, with the aim of denying its contradictory nature.