Distributive Stability by the Reserve Army Mechanism: Marx's Contribution

Central propositions of Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy¹ and the Classical theory of income distribution and accumulation are the assertions that (real) profits and (real) wages must fall in the long-run to their minimum values, while the rent of landlords will increase in the course of this process. The Classical authors then concluded that the economy will in general be approaching the stationary state, since commercial crisis — which interrupt this process — are only temporary phenomena and since technological change will be too weak (in the agrarian sector) to reverse this tendency towards stationarity.²