Grow or Die

[Positivist]

Can someone give me an intimate explanation of why capitalism must grow or die? Or in another words why the expansion of capitalsim, and growth of capitalist wealth are necessary to the systems survival?

Edit: Perhaps to be more succinct, my question is why must profits rise to sustain bourgiose dominance?

[JPSartre12]

A very illustrative way that I once heard it from a fellow Marxist and medical student was that capitalism was like a tumor - it grows in one place, drains all of the resources and inflicts as much damage as it can and, when there's no more nutrients left to harvest there, it moves to the next place so it can feed its insatiable diet.

Capitalism has a natural tendency towards expansionism. As it uses up the resources in one area, it will spread outwards in all directions to find more. Think about economic history - once the Europeans needed additional land, resources, etc they expanded onto other continents and began the American colonies in an attempt to find gold. America has grown and we now exploit Third World countries.

Incessant expansion only leads to the death of the thing expanding, tough. If a tumor spreads to far and is too strong, it will kill its host, and the whole system will die out. The same goes with capitalism: it may be strong and global now, but its inner contradictions are going to eventually push it too far and it will collapse. It's just a matter of time until its host (the Earth, society, etc) breaks under the strain.

[Positivist]

A very illustrative way that I once heard it from a fellow Marxist and medical student was that capitalism was like a tumor - it grows in one place, drains all of the resources and inflicts as much damage as it can and, when there's no more nutrients left to harvest there, it moves to the next place so it can feed its insatiable diet.

Capitalism has a natural tendency towards expansionism. As it uses up the resources in one area, it will spread outwards in all directions to find more. Think about economic history - once the Europeans needed additional land, resources, etc they expanded onto other continents and began the American colonies in an attempt to find gold. America has grown and we now exploit Third World countries.

Yes, clearly the tendency of capitalism is expansion, and the profit motive explains why this is but must bourgiose profits increase to sustain the dominance of the bourgiose?

[Comrade #138672]

Does our current debt system have anything to do with this (too)? It seems that without new debts the money will stop flowing eventually.

I've heard people saying that zero-growth capitalism is possible. Not sure how that is going to work without introducing some form of socialism to stop the blind growth.

[Zav]

Yes, clearly the tendency of capitalism is expansion, and the profit motive explains why this is but must bourgiose profits increase to sustain the dominance of the bourgiose?
The Bourgeoisie are upheld by Capitalism. Without it they will probably be killed, and would certainly lose their wealth. Profit must increase for Capitalism to survive, and so to ensure the continued rule of the Bourgeoisie, the Bourgeoisie must ensure the continued rising of profits.

[Positivist]

The Bourgeoisie are upheld by Capitalism. Without it they will probably be killed, and would certainly lose their wealth. Profit must increase for Capitalism to survive and so to ensure the continued rule of the Bourgeoisie, the Bourgeoisie must ensure the continued rising of profits.

Could you explain this to me?

[jookyle]

Capitalism must expand to survive because(among other reasons already mentioned) the capitalists must gain a monopoly on all resources in order to maintain their control. This is both by controlling markets, and gaining control over new markets. This also serves as a means of control in itself, buy introducing a new product or resource to a people you create a demand for it, and thus, as you own the means of producing that product or collecting that resource the people become dependent on you and your ability to control and maintain control grows.

[MarxSchmarx]

Probably the main mechanism by which this "grow or die" dynamic is thought to emerge is out of the tendency of the rate of profit to decline. As capitalists invest more in constant capital (factories, infrastructure, machinery) the proportion of labor as a share of costs declines. Since labor is necessary to generate surplus value, and since profit is surplus value's share of total cost, profit declines. In the long run profit must go to zero or even negative, making capitalism, which relies on profit, unsustainable. To avoid this death spiral, capitalists expand into new markets where the share invested in constant capital is relatively low and the ratio of surplus value to total cost is high to sustain high levels of profit.