[Canada] David Jensen: The Demise of Capitalism: Ultimate Crisis and the Substance of Value
Can it be proven that capitalism will trigger its own ultimate crisis? Has such a crisis already arrived? Although Marx did not develop a centralized, specialized study on crisis, he viewed crisis as an inherent feature of the capitalist mode of production, thereby providing us with a new paradigm for understanding it. For Marx, capitalist crises break out periodically and are difficult to overcome. To escape the effects of a crisis, the bourgeoisie "on the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones... that is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented." [1]
The reality of numerous economic collapses serves as an illustration of Marx’s judgment regarding the systemic crisis of capitalism, yet it also raises a series of more complex questions: What is the connection between crises occurring in different periods? Do these continuous outbreaks necessarily lead to an ultimate crisis or other catastrophes? If an ultimate crisis is inevitable, to what extent can its trajectory of formation be foreseen?
To better understand the relationship between value and crisis, this article analyzes two viewpoints from different positions. The first viewpoint comes primarily from Robert Kurz, who argues that the successive outbreaks of economic crises must eventually converge into the ultimate crisis of capitalism. Capitalism has reached its end; even the universal application of entirely new forms of capital accumulation can hardly change this fact. The second viewpoint is represented by Michael Heinrich. In his view, while economic crises are an inherent feature of the capitalist mode of production, capitalism may overcome or mitigate the impact of crises by developing new forms of exploitation and accumulation.
In recent years, research examining the ultimate crisis of capitalism from the perspective of Marxist theory has increased daily. Rather than providing a theoretical overview of such research, this article focuses on the perspectives of Kurz and Heinrich to highlight the distinction between substantialist and non-substantialist concepts of value. For Kurz, value is a historical, material substance: it is the expenditure of labor in social (re)production, which is ultimately congealed within the commodity. Therefore, if labor power in the production process is replaced through means such as automation, the material foundation of value (which is also the foundation of the capitalist economy) is undermined. For Heinrich, however, value primarily expresses a relation rather than a "substance." As the social measure of abstract labor, the value of any commodity is determined according to its relationship with other commodities. In this sense, the replacement of labor power has no direct causal relationship with the end of value.
By contrasting these two perspectives, this article aims to make the following theoretical contributions: first, to establish a theoretical framework for examining value and crisis; second, to incorporate Kurz's perspective into the current academic debates on value and crisis; and finally, to analyze the potential limitations of ultimate crisis theory, including determining whether the ultimate crisis can be seen as the inevitable conclusion of the historical process of capitalism. Objectively speaking, value-critique scholars such as Kurz have made important contributions to the construction of crisis theory. However, there are systemic contradictions in Kurz's methodology. On the one hand, his judgment on the development trends of capitalism possesses a typically irrational character; on the other hand, he is desperate to prove the rationality of the capitalist ultimate crisis. In summary, this article contends that corresponding critiques will aid in the further construction of crisis theory.
The concluding section of this article explores the broad implications of the two most recent crises. The 2008 global financial crisis was a research focus in the field of political economy, and thus became a classic case for Kurz’s ultimate crisis theory. In contrast, the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has not only affected the economic situation but has also spread to the ecological environment and healthcare sectors; its developmental trajectory poses a challenge to the validity of Kurz’s theory.
I. Crisis and the Substance of Value
(1) The Positioning of Value: Substance or Relation
Marxism defines value in two ways: first, as undifferentiated human labor congealed in commodities; second, as a social relation realized in exchange. In the view of Isaak Rubin, these two definitions are contradictory. "If abstract labor is a physiological expenditure of energy, then value is a real substance. However, if value is understood as a social relation, then abstract labor must also be a social phenomenon that appears under a specific mode of production. The physiological nature of abstract labor and the historicity of the value it creates are difficult to coexist." [2]
Both Kurz and Heinrich believe that labor must be understood within the historical framework of capitalism. However, they diverge on the methodological question of substantialism versus non-substantialism, leading to different understandings of concrete labor and abstract labor. For Kurz, the production of commodities is the congealing of labor, and value is a "real substance" existing within the commodity. This "substance" possesses two forms: first, use-value, which reflects the relationship between natural materials and material utility; second, exchange-value, which stems from the process of value-formation abstraction—that is, abstract labor as the source of value. In short, value is created in production and is embodied in "every single product."
Conversely, in Heinrich’s horizon, the essence of value is social and relational; it does not exist within the commodity but requires validation through its relationship with the totality of commodities. To borrow Marx's example, when a coat is exchanged for linen, both are transformed into the objectification of human labor; yet neither the coat nor the linen possesses objective value before the exchange—their value can only be manifested within the exchange relation. As the manifestation of abstract labor, "value represents the relation between an individual commodity and the world of commodities as a whole, or between individual labor and total social labor."
In the view of Norbert Trenkle, a scholar of the Kurzian "value-critique" [3] school, Heinrich’s assumption that value only arises when commodities are exchanged is problematic because it severs exchange from production and treats value as the result of individual decisions. Trenkle believes Heinrich is influenced by Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s concept of "real abstraction" (Realabstraktion). Conceptual abstraction is generated by synthesizing different ideas in the mind, whereas real abstraction exists as established social rules before entering thought. For Sohn-Rethel, the core objective was to provide a materialist answer to Kantian epistemology—conceptual abstraction is determined by real abstraction. In capitalist society, value—as a real abstraction whose material form is exchange—plays a decisive role. Simultaneously, the concept of value bridges history and logic, presenting changes in thought within exchange, which provides the foundation for a materialist critique of reality. In Trenkle’s words, "Sohn-Rethel uses exchange to separate production and circulation, which turns the sphere of labor into a private space in which individuals create their products."
Trenkle points out that Heinrich, by defining value through relations, repeats Sohn-Rethel’s error of isolating value within the sphere of exchange. In this definition, value is abstracted from material properties during the exchange process only after production is complete and commodities are cast into the sphere of circulation. By separating the sphere of production from the sphere of circulation, Sohn-Rethel and Heinrich erase the internal links of the modern commodity production system. Furthermore, they obscure the progressive relationship between production and sales and conflate the essential difference between capital valorization and commodity exchange—to the point that they fail to recognize the reality: exchange is not the core of capitalism, it is merely a presupposition of commodity production. Sohn-Rethel once mentioned: "The exchange relation is established through the exchange network; only the exchange-consumption relation is part of social relations." He identified the "exchange network" as the site of real abstraction and value realization, which also means he understood abstraction from a psychological perspective as an act of delayed gratification. Within Sohn-Rethel’s horizon, value realization is viewed as the result of individual behavior, which is likewise one of the fallacies of neoclassical economics.
Trenkle accurately identifies the limitations of Sohn-Rethel’s theory of exchange alienation, but the question is: has Heinrich repeated Sohn-Rethel’s error? I believe he has not. Trenkle argues that Heinrich’s concept of value is built on the premise of linear time, where commodities can only validate their "objectivity of value" during the exchange process. However, does the construct that "an isolated commodity body has value only in the exchange process" necessarily imply that the field of labor is a purely private space? How do we explain the problem of space being determined by time? If we associate value with specific commodity objects, then it could be argued that Heinrich repeats Sohn-Rethel’s error. However, in Heinrich’s theory, the object of analysis is never a specific individual commodity. To analyze how the misreading of Heinrich arose, it is necessary to examine his commentary on Capital (Volume I).
Commodities possess exchange value, and the nature of exchange value is socially determined. If something has exchange value, it is a commodity; the act of exchange imparts a value-dimension to a useful thing (a useful thing with natural attributes). The latter is not fixed in the object but is acquired during the exchange process, which is necessarily social; therefore, for Heinrich, "the commodity-attribute of a chair is not inherent to it, but is endowed by society."
The expansion of exchange determines that value is a relation. "In the case of exchange as an isolated phenomenon, various quantities of exchange relations may arise: I might exchange a chair for two yards of linen in one place, or for three yards in another, and so on. But if exchange becomes the prescribed form of commodity circulation, then each exchange relation must be matched according to some standard." In other words, if I can exchange a coat for a chair or 100 eggs, then I can also exchange 100 eggs for a chair. Here, Heinrich’s relational understanding of value is clear: value is not produced by the act of exchange itself, but comes from the fact of exchangeability.
The magnitude of value is determined by socially necessary labor time. Socially necessary labor time represents the generalization of the labor time required to produce a specific use-value; the formation of this standard depends on the degree of prevalence of production conditions.
Regarding the concept of the universal equivalent, through his interpretation of Marx’s thought, Heinrich elucidates his difference from Sohn-Rethel’s psychological logic of value and establishes his anti-substantialist stance. Heinrich argues: "The magnitude of a commodity's value is not merely the relationship between the producer's individual labor and the product (this is the meaning of the 'substantialist' view of value), but the relationship between the producer's individual labor and the total social labor." Furthermore, the relationship between individual labor and total social labor is constructed by exchange through the form of money. Broadly speaking, Heinrich’s relational interpretation of the link between the abstract and concrete dimensions of value echoes Marx’s assertion in Capital: "In the value relation and the value expression included in it, it is not the abstractly general that is treated as a property of the concrete, sensible-real thing; on the contrary, it is the sensible-concrete that is treated as the mere form of appearance or definite realization form of the abstractly general." [4]
We can proceed from the perspective of potentiality to consider the questions of value and exchange. Trenkle’s critique of Heinrich is confined to a binary understanding of exchange: either something possesses potential value (having not yet entered the sphere of exchange) or it possesses actual value (having already entered the sphere of exchange). This article contends that such a view is a simplification of philosophical methodology. Aristotle once pointed out that there are two forms of potentiality, or power: the first form is the capacity to bring about change; the second form refers to the possibility of persisting in a more fully developed state. In this sense, potentiality is not only something that may become reality; it is equally a mode of existence, even if it might not be realized. Potentiality (where value is linked to a material substance) and actuality (where value is linked to commodities in a broad sense) are not only separable in the temporal dimension—in that potential value needs to be realized in exchange—but can also exist simultaneously. For example, an architect possesses the capacity to build whether or not he is currently manifesting that capacity. All matter (such as wood) contains an irreducible potential form (such as serving as a table, an oar, or a bowl), and commodities likewise always retain their potential value. As Heinrich states, value can be regarded as the potential essence of unexchanged commodities. Therefore, linking value to exchange does not mean that production becomes an independent, pre-capitalist sphere. Both production and exchange are jointly subsumed under the total relations of capitalism. Within these relations, the potentiality and actuality of both labor and capital are regulated in a unified manner.
(2) Production, Circulation, and Exchange
As far as capitalism as a whole is concerned, although the roles of production, circulation, and exchange in value-creating activities differ, these stages are interconnected. This point can be illustrated through two pairs of relations: first, the distinction between fixed capital and circulating capital; second, the difference between the sphere of production and the sphere of circulation.
The distinction between fixed capital and circulating capital can be defined according to the circulation of value within them. Circulating capital includes raw materials and fuel used in production, which must be replaced in every production cycle. Fixed capital includes the value of factory buildings and their machinery, which is gradually transferred to products over multiple production cycles; although machines and buildings also need replacement after wear and tear, this does not occur rapidly.
As necessary stages in the circuit of capital, the difference between production and circulation can be illustrated via M-C-M'. In the first stage (M-C), money capital is exchanged for commodities. Here, the materiality of the purchased commodities is of critical importance. For a merchant, he is willing to purchase any product that can be sold at a higher price. For the capitalist, however, what is purchased are specific types of commodities: means of production and labor power. That is to say, the function of the capitalist is to transform money into productive capital.
In the second stage, the productive capital obtained through the first stage is consumed in the process of producing new commodities. As a form of capital valorization, this set of new commodities is different from the previous ones in both quality and quantity. It differs in quality because it transforms productive capital into commodity capital; it differs in quantity because the value of the commodity capital is higher than that of the productive capital.
In the third stage (C-M'), the capitalist re-enters the market to transform a portion of the commodity capital back into money capital. At that point, the valorized money capital allows the capitalist to accomplish two things: first, to replace the productive capital consumed in the first stage; second, to retain the difference between M (the initially invested money capital) and M' (the money capital existing in a valorized form) as profit.
The goal of capitalists is to maximize profit by organizing the three stages of the capital circuit. From their perspective, the first and third stages constitute the sphere of circulation, while the second stage constitutes the sphere of production. However, from the perspective of the totality of capital, these three stages are indistinguishable; they are unified under the objective of creating surplus value. As Marx stated:
“Industrial capital is the only mode of existence of capital in which not only the appropriation of surplus value, or surplus product, but also its creation is a function of capital. Therefore, it conditionalizes the capitalist character of production; its existence implies the existence of the class antagonism between capitalists and wage laborers. To the extent that industrial capital masters social production, the technique and the social organization of the labor process are revolutionized and therewith the economic-historical type of society.”
In other words, production cannot be understood as an isolated sphere. Productive activity and its technical and social conditions are constantly renovated within the valorization process that encompasses both production and circulation. Since the occurrence of the “logistics revolution,” transformed forms of capital accumulation have further strengthened the link between production and circulation. For example, Fordism simplified production itself, while the Toyota model (“just-in-time” production) improved the efficiency of circulation. The boundary between production and circulation has become increasingly blurred, to the extent that factory products are often already ordered. To a certain degree, utilizing emerging logistics technologies such as containerization, “just-in-time” can reduce inventory to a minimum, thereby eliminating the spatio-temporal boundary between production and exchange. Regarding the three stages of the capital circuit, the two stages belonging to the sphere of circulation can now be completed before the production stage.
The platform capitalism that has emerged in the last couple of years has further escaped dependence on fixed capital; this type of business model has established a new type of employment relationship. As Tom Goodwin remarked: “Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.” Regarding wage labor, a clear boundary traditionally existed between production and circulation because capitalists adjusted employment strategies based on changes in demand, but the network economy model is erasing this boundary. It goes without saying that the "independent contractors" of platforms are completely dependent on market fluctuations; their situation is in a state of constant instability.
Networked development seems to confirm that the relationship between production, circulation, and exchange is undergoing a qualitative change. As Jasper Bernes argues, the logistics revolution mirrors the transformation of capitalism; the development of digital and platform capitalism is transforming all fixed capital into circulating capital, which more closely conforms to the pure form of capital flow—money.
To illustrate this, we can further distinguish between two types of circulation costs. Transportation companies generate circulation costs by bringing commodities to consumers, but this activity of delivering products adds value to the commodity. However, the platform services provided by network companies represented by Airbnb and Uber do not add commodity value; their positioning is closer to that of a cashier facilitating product exchange rather than a capitalist, and thus their circulation costs should be defined as pure costs of circulation.
Joshua Clover has pointed out that transformations in the sphere of circulation, and even shifts in accumulation cycles, reflect the collapse of value production at the core of the world system; for this very reason, the center of gravity of capital is shifting toward the sphere of circulation. This change may help explain the rapid rise of various network companies after the 2008 global financial crisis; these companies likewise profited handsomely by promoting online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic, and their successful model is forming a long-term mechanism. Furthermore, these companies reconfigure existing service industries (such as taxis, hotels, news media, and retail stores) by exploiting vulnerable groups (and intentionally expanding their scale). However, this practice does not create new value.
(3) Value, Substance, and Crisis
New changes in capitalism validate Marx’s projections, which are also the core of Kurz’s theory—namely, that the application of science and technology will gradually replace human labor in certain fields of production. This change is not accidental; it is irreversible. The ever-expanding competition of capitalism catalyzes entirely new forms of surplus value creation and exploitation, built upon a foundation of technical rationalization. In a historical sense, the logistics revolution is not merely an innovative business strategy, but a proposal for overcoming the falling rate of profit.
Taken as a whole, the development of just-in-time and platform capitalism provides a new focus for the debate between substantialist and non-substantialist value theories. In Kurz's view, the extraction of labor from the production process inevitably leads to the contraction of value, which is precisely the signal of the ultimate crisis of capitalism. Although Heinrich agrees with the view that capital is comprehensively excluding labor from production, he does not believe that this change will necessarily lead to an ultimate crisis. In Heinrich’s view, the fact that capital separates itself from the material basis upon which it depends is not an insoluble hidden danger. In his words, “For the capitalist, what matters is not the absolute value of the commodity, but the surplus value (or profit) that this commodity brings him. As long as relative surplus labor keeps increasing, a decrease in the production time of commodities and the total sum of their value is acceptable.” Therefore, Heinrich believes it is currently impossible to prove that capitalism will reach its limit.
Although Kurz and Heinrich proceed from the same set of facts to examine capitalism, they reach opposite conclusions. Based on the preceding analysis, we can find that their opposition stems from different understandings of the concept of value; whether the ultimate crisis can be confirmed depends on whether value is understood as a material substance or a relation. If, like Kurz, one understands value as a material substance condensed from labor, then when labor is excluded from production, the value of commodities will approach zero. Furthermore, market competition relies on the continuous improvement of productive forces [5], which is achieved through technological means replacing human labor. As labor increasingly diminishes, value is continuously lost until social labor is reduced to a limit where the value of commodities becomes unquantifiable, and capitalism comes to its end. Whether one views value as a material substance is extremely critical for judging the ultimate crisis. Although Kurz once defined value as a “negative substance,” he was still emphasizing the material attributes of value. If value is defined as a substance within a commodity that can be absolutely quantified, then the exclusion of labor causes value to disappear in a physical sense. On the one hand, capital establishes labor time as the sole measure and source of value and wealth; on the other hand, capital always tries to reduce labor time to a minimum. Marx deconstructed this mystery of capital in the critique of political economy, yet the real contradiction remains. Systematically speaking, the logic of capital is both the fundamental principle that the production of relative surplus value must follow and a historical limit to the production of surplus value.
However, if value is constituted by the sum of abstract relations between commodities, then the replacement of labor by machines is no longer an absolute limit, but can be understood as a trend that reconfigures and maintains value relations. In Heinrich’s theoretical framework, the exclusion of human labor from production is merely a trend that might induce a crisis. The changes in the relationship between production, circulation, and exchange indeed reshape the process of value constitution, but value as a relative quantity will not be lost because of this.
II. The Politics of Crisis
To further interpret the debate between Kurz and Heinrich, we need to trace back to Marxist crisis theory. In the view of Marx and Engels, capitalist crises are not only periodic but also have cumulative long-term effects. They pointed out in the Communist Manifesto:
“By what means does the bourgeoisie overcome these crises? On the one hand, by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.” For Marx and Engels, the economic crisis of 1847 to 1848 and the subsequent revolutions proved to a certain extent that the cumulative effects of capitalist crises were inevitable. In 1850, Engels...
In an article published in 1850 titled "The Ten Hours' Bill in England," Engels wrote that British industrialists "are fast approaching the period where their resources will be exhausted, where the prosperity which now yet eludes the pressure of the over-grown productive forces between one crisis and the next will disappear altogether," and "then the proletarian revolution will be inevitable, and its victory beyond doubt." In an 1857 letter to Marx, Engels spoke again of the crisis: "I feel very well in this general breakdown. Since the speculative crash in New York, I could no longer feel quiet in Jersey. The bourgeois filth of the last seven years had, after all, stuck to me to some extent; now it is being washed off, and I feel like another man. The crisis will do my body as much good as a sea-bath, I can feel it already."
Beyond these passages, Marx seemed to preserve his prognosis of an ultimate crisis in the Manuscripts (1857–1858) [7] and provided it with a more solid philosophical foundation. In the "Fragment on Machines," he pointed out that automation brought about by the application of science replaces "immediate labor," thereby undermining the source of wealth. Furthermore, "As soon as labor in the direct form has ceased to be the great well-spring of wealth, labor time ceases and must cease to be its measure, and hence exchange value [must cease to be the measure] of use value. The surplus labor of the mass has ceased to be the condition for the development of general wealth, just as the non-labor of the few, for the development of the general powers of the human head. With that, production based on exchange value breaks down." Here, Marx predicted the collapse of the capitalist mode of production, making the Manuscripts (1857–1858) the textual basis for his ultimate crisis hypothesis. However, capitalism after 1858 did not collapse as Marx and Engels predicted, nor did a political revolution break out. On the contrary, capital recovered again and expanded rapidly, as capitalists found new forms of creating surplus value. Marx revisited the concept of crisis in the later volumes of Capital and its manuscripts, yet he still did not elucidate the relationship between crisis and the collapse of capital. Even in the Manuscripts (1861–1863), Marx noted: "The world market crisis must be regarded as the real synthesis and forcible equalization of all the contradictions of bourgeois economy." This phrasing echoes arguments from Marx’s earlier texts, such as the assertion in the Communist Manifesto that commercial crises "by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly." Even so, Marx never explicitly linked this "synthesis" and "equalization" of contradictions with a permanent collapse.
In Peter Osborne’s view, Marx’s understanding of crisis is multifaceted. "On the one hand, his theory of crisis is a political-economic critique directed at capitalist production; but on the other hand, his so-called crisis possesses a political significance, manifesting a logic of social revolution that transcends the historical process of capitalism." In a sense, crisis theory can be divided into two types: first, a theory of crisis regarding how capital overcomes its own limits; second, a theory of crisis regarding how to achieve a transformation of the capitalist mode of production. Among these, the political dimension is the focus of debate among Marxist scholars. Osborne argues: "Interpreting crisis from a political dimension is the logical continuation of these two types of crisis theory. In dealing with the problem of cyclical crises, the revolution of the mode of production also involves changes at the political level."
Due to the influence of Hegelian dialectics (where the negation of the old itself constitutes a productive synthesis), crisis theory often contains a logic suggesting that capitalism's inherent cyclical crises will not only end capitalism itself but also usher in a brighter post-capitalist future. This vision might be realized directly under the objective logic of history, or it might be achieved by activating the historical subjectivity of the proletariat—that is, by uniting all proletarians exploited by capitalists to launch a revolution.
Broadly speaking, Robert Kurz does not touch upon the political dimension of crisis theory; he insists on examining the crisis of capitalism from the standpoint of value-critique. According to Anselm Jappe’s summary, Kurz’s core view is: "After two centuries of development, the capitalist mode of production has reached its historical limit. The rationalization and automation of production, including the replacement of labor by technology, have destroyed the basis of value production. As the sole goal of a commodity economy, the foundation for producing surplus value is being liquidated." In Kurz’s view, because innovations in the mode of production are wrongly judged as changes external to the capitalist social formation, the contradictions of value production are masked by superficial transformations. However, proceeding from the logic of value production, one can demonstrate that capitalism has entered an inevitable ultimate crisis.
If we understand value-critique as a crisis theory based on the political dimension, two points require further clarification. First, because labor is a form of manifesting value relations, political activities centered on the laborer as the subject (such as establishing trade unions, conducting labor movements, or implementing profit redistribution) often only serve to reproduce the existing order. Furthermore, as Kurz states, "since the process of individualization as a manifestation of crisis destroys social filters, every atomized subject in society is associated from the very beginning with the global value chain." In short, labor is an integral part of the current capitalist order, and political transformation cannot be achieved by relying on it alone. Second, compared to political programs based on labor, a concrete, historical value-critique is more conducive to driving social development because it can penetrate the core of social contradictions and identify the key to the problem. As Trenkle argues, "Marx never attempted to propose a theory to argue for the effectiveness of economic policy. On the contrary, his concern was to prove that a society based on value has irrational internal contradictions and a tendency that will eventually make the society difficult to sustain." It is worth noting that Trenkle’s interpretation overlooks some important issues. What Marx focused on in his works was not the contradictory relationship between "economic critique" and "economic policy," but the relationship between the critique of political economy and social revolution.
In Kurz’s view, these two points should be understood within the framework of historical materialism. "According to analytical proof, capitalism dominated by a commodity economy and bourgeoisification initially appeared in embryonic form within feudal society; subsequently, capitalism underwent a long process of development while feudal forces still held a dominant position." He further believes that the junction between the critical concept of crisis and the political concept of socio-economic transformation does not lie in the seizure of power through revolution. Regarding this, Kurz points out: "The emergence of capitalism did not begin with a political revolution (such as the French Revolution), but much earlier. In fact, capitalism proved to be a class-conscious force with its own intentions and goals regarding the question of political power only after experiencing a long process of development."
In other words, political revolution is not the starting point but the endpoint; it cannot give birth to an entirely new social idea but can only reveal the already established new social forms by smashing the "shell" of the old society. In Kurz’s words, "the replacement of reproduction under the commodity form is not a technical or organizational matter to be carried out more or less after the (political and legal) 'expropriation' of capitalists, but the replacement of all relations and social ideologies composed of value or the 'value-dissociation' [8] between the sexes." Simply put, social revolution is not a re-planning of politics and economics, but a demand for a complete, critical break from capitalist relations and their ideology. On the one hand, a political program based on the unique advantages of the existing society will only reproduce rather than transform that society; on the other hand, critical crisis theory helps to discover new social elements in the process of stripping away the characteristics of the old society. Broadly speaking, no ontological principle points to a scientific path for social liberation; only through a concrete, historical critique of capitalism can the transcendence of the capitalist social formation be realized.
III. The Historicity of "Crisis"
Objectively speaking, Kurz’s theory of transcending capitalism through "concrete, historical critique" has obvious limitations. Specifically, to reach the conclusion of an ultimate crisis of capitalism through value-critique, it is not enough to conduct scholarly research on current crisis dynamics; value-critique also needs to grasp future crisis trends. Predicting crisis trends is not only the research goal of Kurz and other value-critique scholars but also the core content of modern crisis theory.
(1) The Historical Origins of the Concept of Crisis
Like any other concept, "crisis" is a historical concept. According to the conceptual genealogy compiled by Reinhart Koselleck, "crisis" appeared as a term to define historical periods from the late 18th century onward. Just as a symbolic sign defines a situation, calling a certain stage a "crisis" is meant to highlight the abnormal conditions of that historical period. However, to conceptually define an abnormal stage, one also needs to determine a normal form relative to the abnormal. In other words, when the concept of "crisis" was generated, the concept of "non-crisis" appeared simultaneously. The difference between the two may be synchronic or diachronic. In any case, their logic is to define the crisis from outside the crisis.
In Janet Roitman’s view, a new type of historical consciousness can be generated around crisis. "For this historical consciousness, crisis is the standard for measuring history. Crisis signifies change, to the extent that crisis becomes a part of history or even refers to 'History' itself. Thus, crisis becomes a concept of the philosophy of history, beginning to be used as a scale for positioning, perceiving, understanding, and even judging history." In short, crisis can be used both to name events or processes occurring in history and is itself a construction of history. Crisis is not only a scale for positioning history; it also makes history transcend the primary definition of "past events." Furthermore, the separable historicity manifested by crisis and its existence as a historical concept are both related to the intellectual liberation of the Enlightenment. At that time, the progressive bourgeoisie proposed a dual conception of the crisis concept. By pre-setting a crisis concept closely related to social-historical development, the bourgeoisie was able to judge the development of various fields. In other words, the bourgeois revolution was the result of the coupling of crisis and critique.
Today, we can capture the "normal/abnormal" logic surrounding crisis in various fields. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people constantly mentioned "returning to normal." Additionally, when examining the climate crisis, scientists use discourse like "normal" to describe current atmospheric levels. The distinction between "normal" and "abnormal" is not only descriptive but also manifests as a kind of regulation—prescribing what features reality should have under normal circumstances. Therefore, the emergence of the concept of crisis prompts us to pursue a "normal" development model and brings a warning that deformed development will eventually suffer historical judgment. Since then, crisis has become one of the core discourses of the modern state.
Tracing the conceptual history of crisis helps in understanding the uniqueness of Marx’s concept of crisis. When Marx elucidated that crisis is an inherent feature of capitalism, he not only proposed another definition of crisis but also changed the essence of the concept. Through the concept of crisis, Marx established a completely new material dynamic, pioneerly constructing the connection between synchronic distinction (changes in the mode of production) and diachronic distinction (changes in historical stages). In his system of thought, crisis is neither an event nor a state of affairs, but a dynamic process of rupture and regeneration. Consequently, the concept of crisis began to be used to interpret history. By clarifying that crisis is an inherent feature of capitalism, Marx transformed "crisis" from a normative concept into a concept of historical science.
Marx's dialectical reshaping of the concept of crisis operates on two levels. First, Marx clarifies that crisis is the consequence of the "real concentration and forcible adjustment" of the internal contradictions of capitalism. The drive for historical change is not an external force but the movement of contradictions inherent to the system. Second, crisis is viewed as a transitional stage leading into the next historical period. For Kurz, the ultimate crisis of capitalism similarly manifests as a transitional form of historical development; the crisis and rational critique germinating within capitalist society will likewise lead to its demise.
(2) The Argumentation for the Ultimate Crisis of Capitalism
While Marx provided a theoretical paradigm for demonstrating the inherent crisis forms of capitalism, constructing a new line of thinking is required if one is to argue that capitalism must inevitably move toward an ultimate crisis. Before proceeding with this argument, we need to distinguish between two approaches: first, at the logical level, capitalism breeds the preconditions for the eruption of an ultimate crisis within itself; second, from the perspective of historical trends, capitalism can no longer create new modes of valorization to reverse its collapse. The first approach is based on capital's destruction of the source of value, following the fact of the ever-expanding nature of capitalist crises. However, for the concept of an ultimate crisis to hold, the key lies in the second approach—that is, demonstrating the possibility of its future occurrence. Trenkle argues:
"A crisis theory based on the critique of value... can provide scholarly and empirical evidence. It can confirm that no new waves of long-term accumulation will emerge, and that capitalism has irrevocably entered a barbaric era full of decline and disintegration." Taken as a whole, demonstrating the ultimate crisis of capitalism requires not only investigating the conditions under which such a crisis is generated but also proving that these conditions will persist into the future.
Specifically, there are two primary paths for arguing the question of the ultimate crisis. The first is to examine all variables that might influence an ultimate crisis, which is difficult to achieve within the horizon of historical materialism. The second is to judge the future trend of the ultimate crisis by establishing the decisive factors that have historically influenced crises. As Guglielmo Carchedi and Michael Roberts state: "If we prove that the same factors that determined the development of events in the past can continue to play a role in the future, then we can foresee the repetition of history." To this end, they employ a basic physical analogy: when a stone is dropped, the reason we can accurately predict it will inevitably hit the ground is that we have deduced that the gravity which caused the stone to fall in the past will exert the same effect in the future. In this sense, Marx's theory remains applicable when arguing the future of the ultimate crisis.
However, in Heinrich’s view, we have equal reason to believe that Marx himself might not have agreed with conferring universality upon his crisis theory. Facing the economic crisis of 1873, which swept across nearly the entire globe, Marx once pointed out: "The phenomena this time are quite unique, differing in many respects from previous ones... One must, therefore, watch the present course of events until they are quite ripe before one can 'consume' them 'productively,' I mean 'theoretically'." [9]
IV. Conclusion
If value is a substance, then, as Kurz explains, value possesses a fixed and measurable endpoint. Furthermore, only when value becomes a material substance that can be literally transferred does it become possible for it to truly approach zero. Value-as-substance functions as a "marker point" in Kurz's theory for judging the limits of capitalism. Simultaneously, in Kurz's theory, crisis manifests as transitional history. When the underlying social foundation nears collapse, the crisis leads to a shift in social formation. In this regard, we can grasp the essence of this historical change by examining the process of the latent disappearance of capitalism's material base.
On the one hand, treating value as a specific "marker point" helps locate the crisis. For Kurz, Trenkle, and other value-critique scholars, crisis is a definite concept representing the limit of capitalism; the end of capitalism results from the total exclusion of human labor from the process of capital valorization. On the other hand, this definition of value transforms the crisis itself into a transhistorical category, marking the transition from one historical stage to the next, where the outcome of the transition is determined by the variable factor of the value-substance. Capitalism (or any other historical stage) gradually moves toward its end; the final realization of its potential is its self-destruction. Regarding such an assertion, the only thing required is a critical analysis of those realistic factors that have temporarily checked the eruption of the ultimate crisis.
When the aforementioned theoretical framework is applied respectively to the cases of the 2008 global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, completely different theoretical efficacies emerge. Kurz's theory has a clear advantage in interpreting the financial crisis. Generally speaking, economists failed to successfully predict this crisis; even after its eruption, they only proposed some superficial causes (such as bankers' greed, corporate corruption, regulatory failure, etc.). In contrast, Kurz’s value-critique provides a solid theoretical foundation for dissecting the financial crisis, helping to clarify why the 2008 global financial crisis developed into a far-reaching global disaster. Starting from a concrete and historical perspective, Kurz argues that the financial crisis stemmed from a "lack of real capital valorization." He not only developed a research paradigm for dissecting financial crises within the historical framework of capitalism but also revealed why stimulus plans and bailout measures cannot resolve underlying problems. Beyond this, Kurz's value-critique theory laid the theoretical foundation for subsequent research clarifying the relationship between social reproduction and capitalist crisis. Compared to the 2008 global financial crisis, the COVID-19 crisis exhibits distinct heterogeneous characteristics, converging multiple crisis forms—including ecological, social, political, and economic levels. Therefore, Kurz’s value-critique framework may face more difficulties when analyzing the COVID-19 crisis and similar future cases.
According to the laws of development of human society, capitalism will eventually be replaced by a new social formation. It must be clarified that rejecting the "ultimate crisis hypothesis" neither represents support for the "end of history" [10] thesis nor implies that social development is unpredictable. The theory regarding the ultimate crisis does indeed have limitations; namely, it can only understand crisis narrowly as a pre-set program, as if the ultimate crisis would not appear so long as we ignore the latent defects of capitalism. Furthermore, to judge the future trend of capitalist crises, Kurz incorporates historical dialectics into a timeline with clear stage markers, thereby systematizing the current capitalist crisis as a historical reproduction of pre-capitalist crises. He developed a historical materialist crisis theory through a profound critique of categories such as labor, value, and money within the horizon of historical materialism. The viewpoint of this article is consistent with Marx's view when facing the 1873 economic crisis: we are currently in a unique historical period.