Piketty versus Piketty: El capital en el siglo XXI y la tendencia descendente de la tasa de ganancia en el Reino Unido y Alemania desde el siglo XIX confirmada por los datos de Piketty

Abstract

In Capital in 21st century, Thomas Piketty criticizes Marxian theory and the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall in the long term. His main argument, asserted by other authors since decades, is related to the capacity of increases in productivity to counterweight the tendency. The French author establishes a stable "rate of return" too, but this rate and his critics on Marx are founded on a neoclassical perspective. Thus Piketty denies the validity of the law but changing its determinations as a result of the labor theory of value and the valorization process. When a proper definition of the matter in Marxian terms is done, Piketty´s data itself confirms the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.