The intensity of the variation of the rate of surplus-value in Marx’s problematic of the dynamics of general rate profit
In his successive analytical efforts to grasp the dynamics of the rate of profit, Marx identified the growth of the difference between the rate of surplus-value and profit rate as the most general condition of the declining of the latter, in spite of the rise of the general rate of surplus-value. He tried relentlessly to formulate the law of this evolution. Even if he did not reach this goal, Marx made partially obvious that the decline of the profit rate was due to the intensity of the variation of the rate of surplus-value. Yet, if one considers the rate of profit as a discrete dynamic system, it appears clearly that the intensity of the surplus-value rate plays a crucial role in the fate of this system, and that taking into account the surplus-value rate allows us to formulate the most general conditions of the declining of profit rate, and of the necessary trend of such declining. This allows us as well to formulate the elementary laws which govern the intensities of variation in the composition, accumulation, and of the simple difference between the two rates, and of their relations.