Why do capitalists compete?

[turquino]

Why do capitalists compete with each other? If capitalists are reinvesting surplus value in new constant capital or more labour-saving technology, thus undermining the prevailing aggregate rate of profit and eventually building to a crisis of overproduction, why don't they get together and decide they are all going to consume the whole surplus and put the brakes to expanded reproduction? I know Marx just showed simple reproduction as a way of demonstrating his argument, and it didn't happen in the real world, but I don't understand why capitalists wouldn't want this to happen.

Unless I'm wrong about all this, I can only think of 1 reason that they haven't chosen to, that is the anarchy of the market is constantly keeping them on edge and obsessed with making more profits for themselves, and they're too worried about what the other capitalists might be doing if they aren't.

[ZeroNowhere]

If they don't invest enough of their money into technology and improved productivity, then they'll quite quickly be put out of business by somebody exploiting the situation for short-term profit. After that, the deluge.

[Brother No. 1]

The Capitalist system is all about competetion. As they would Say. " You get to be at the top by taking the rest down."

[BobKKKindle$]

If a market has reached a sufficient level of concentration, it is sometimes possible for the capitalists to group together and agree on how much each firm should produce and when they should adopt technological innovations - this is what happens currently in the form of cartels, most famously through OPEC, which regulates the supply of oil in order to maintain a stable and profitable price. In less concentrated markets, however, this is more difficult to implement, as any individual capitalist can easily break an agreement in order to under cut her competitors, if only for a short period of time, and so capitalists are unlikely to risk not investing in constant capital, even if this eventually causes a decline in the rate of profit, given that labour is the only possible source of surplus value. This is particularly true during the imperialist stage of capitalism, when the world has been integrated into a single economic unit, as capitalists are also faced with competition from overseas, and so encounter additional pressure to lower the price of their goods by conducting constant capital investment and raising the organic composition of capital.

[Post-Something]

I wish you would turn your rep on Bobkindles :)

[Brother No. 1]

He is good.

[el_chavista]

Are you speaking about early capitalism? Because now a day it is all about monopolies and cartels. Supposedly, antitrust laws are for keeping the economy from degradation.
Enterprises may accord in prices and compete in selling (more and better advertising).

[iraqnevercalledmenigger]

this place is a sausage fest

[jake williams]

this place is a sausage fest
Welcome to The Internet!

[Black Sheep]

Why do capitalists compete with each other? If capitalists [...]might be doing if they aren't.
In addittion to what Bobkindles said, the capitalists are kind of a hybrid, due to the contradictions of capitalism.
Their role and functions as members ofthe capitalist system is to be at constant competiton with their "comrades".Capitalists agreeing with each other and cooperating (for profit) is an exception to the rule.
Their system role also contradicts with their class role- despite them being on constant competition and biting each others' ears off, you can be certain to see them immediately rallying and charging as one, when the survival of the system on which they depend is under threat.

Funny little creatures.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Why do capitalists compete with each other?

It's their ideology. They have to compete to keep going. Whoever gets the most customers at their business gets the most money. Don't get enough? You go out of business. Of course those who come up on top make millions which I think is total bullshit, considering how many people don't get a chance to succeed under Capitalism.

[turquino]

Something I had forgotten was that the rate of profit and the mass of surplus value can move in opposite directions. To individual capitalists the goal is to realize as much surplus value as possible. Rising C relative to V makes labour more productive, raising the amount of surplus value the individual capitalist can get, while at the same time lowering the rate of profit. For example, improving labour productivity means the capitalist could receive 1/2 (rate of 100%) of a worker's labour unpaid instead of 1/3 (50%). But the result is a decrease in the average exchange value of the commodity. When this is happening economy-wide, then there's a decrease in the value of capital goods too, and intuitively a brake on the falling rate of profit. *However*, the higher labour productivity and a faster rate of turnover also means that new capital goods won't be able to contribute all their value to commodities before they are devalued in turn by even newer capital goods. Since some of these fixed investments are so expensive to begin with, (like a single Korean-built supertanker costs $100,000,000 new), the banks that lend the colossal sums to companies on the expectation of future profitmaking are the ones that get hit first in crises like the current one. So really, capitalists can't do a whole lot about a falling rate of profit because capitalism would grind to a halt if its owners weren't constantly grabbing more surplus value.

[BlackCapital]

Short answer: They must compete in order to expand their markets and profit, and eventually eat the less productive capitalists. They're ruthless, infact so much that they continue to do this even while they take the global economy down with them.