Crisis, falling rate of profit and the social policy in capitalism

Abstract

This article is the result of a theoretical and documentary research on capital crises, the tendency to fall in the rate of profit and its relationship with social policies. It aims to elucidate how social policies, in certain periods of history, are strategies to leverage profit rates, whether in their expansion, as occurred after 1929, or in their retraction, as occurred in the crisis from 1970 onwards. The methodology used consisted of a bibliographic review, with the appropriation of Marxian categories such as the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, accumulation and crisis. The results obtained allow us to consider that social policies have played a relevant role in the recovery of capital profit rates, serving as an important mechanism to respond to crisis processes, under the justification of serving the working class, resuming economic growth and ensuring the survival of the capitalist mode of production.