Table of Contents for World Review of Political Economy, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2022
The Okishio Theorem, proposed by the Japanese economist Nobuo Okishio in 1961, stands as a significant challenge to Marx’s law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall [1]. Okishio argued that if real wages remain constant, the introduction of any "viable" new technique—one that reduces unit costs at current prices—will necessarily lead to a rise in the general rate of profit. This conclusion strikes at the heart of Marx’s assertion in Capital that the rising organic composition of capital [2], driven by the development of the productive forces, would lead to a declining rate of profit, thereby revealing the historical limitations of the capitalist mode of production.
Starting from the New Era, Chinese Marxist scholars have engaged in a deep critical deconstruction of this theorem to defend the scientificity of historical materialism and Marx’s theory of surplus value. The debate is not merely a mathematical dispute over linear equations but concerns the fundamental nature of the relations of production under capitalism. As China promotes high-quality development and navigates the complexities of the "dual circulation" [3] strategy, the theoretical vigor of political economy becomes essential for understanding the systemic crises inherent in the global capitalist economy.
In this context, the critiques offered by Zhang Xian and Xue Yufeng, along with Yu Bin, aim to demonstrate that the Okishio Theorem rests on a comparative static analysis that overlooks the temporal dimension of capital accumulation and the devaluation of existing capital. By ignoring the "value" aspect of the organic composition of capital and focusing solely on "price-of-production" equilibrium, the theorem fails to capture the dialectical movement of the economic base. These scholars uphold the fundamentals and break new ground by integrating the insights of the "Temporal Single-System Interpretation" (TSSI) while maintaining the distinctiveness of Sinicized Marxist analysis.
Furthermore, the discussion surrounding the 15th Forum of the World Association for Political Economy (WAPE) underscores the global relevance of these debates. Under the guidance of Enfu Cheng and other prominent theorists from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), the forum emphasized the need for "Rethinking Economic Analysis." This is not a call for a return to dogmatism but a requirement to seek truth from facts and advance with the times. By applying the method of dialectical materialism to "new quality productive forces," Chinese scholars are contributing to a community with a shared future for humanity by offering a robust alternative to neoliberal orthodoxy, rooted in the lived experience of Chinese-path modernization.