We have seen that the doctrine of the increasing misery of the
working class depends on the increasing displacement of living
labor power by constant capital. The conditions of low wages
and employment are maintained by the rate of accumulation of
constant capital exceeding the rate of growth of total capital.
With a limited rate of accumulation this might result in a nega-
tive growth rate of the variable capital wages fund. ¹ Even if this
extreme form does not obtain, Marx argued that it still might be
the case that more labor power would be thrown on the market
than is absorbed with a moderate rate of total accumulation. If
we consider wages as the equilibrium price of the value of labor
power under conditions of perfect competition this condition is
not one of full employment equilibrium. Rather it is a situation
of disequilibrium in which an industrial reserve army of unem-
ployed is maintained by replacing the demand for variable capi-
tal with that for constant.

Marx considered it more likely that the rate of accumulation
would exceed the displacement of labor power and the result
would tend toward a no-profit equilibrium. This would be the
tendency even in the Boulding bilateral monopoly model. It is
curious that if variable capital is displaced and the rate of
surplus value is held roughly constant, the same fate of increas-
ing misery of the working class would apply to the capitalists as
well. One Marxist writer carried this to the absurdity of predict-
ing the end of capitalism through the starvation of the ruling
class. ² Of course Marx made no such predictions, but he did

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