Rick Kuhn, 'At the length the truth will out' (hopefully): The reception of Henryk Grossman's crisis theory

Henryk Grossman recovered Marx’s theory of economic crisis, based on the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, in his best known work, The Law of Accumulation and Breakdown of the Capitalist System, published in 1929. In that book and elsewhere, he emphasised the importance of active revolutionary politics. Yet most initial reviews accused him of having a mechanical theory of capitalist collapse. That criticism has been regularly capitulated ever since. This paper considers the adequacy of Grossman’s arguments and those of his critics, as well as the circumstances which have favoured their persistence.

Rick Kuhn is the author of the Deutscher Prize winning Henryk Grossman and the Recovery of Marxism. He is editing, writing and introduction for four volumes of Grossman’s works, currently tackling the third of these, the first full English language translation of The Law of Accumulation.

Venue: Merewether Seminar Room, 498

Date: Tuesday 1 May 4:00 – 5:30 pm