Unoist Approach to the Theory of Economic Crises

Abstract

To concentrate on the study of economic crises and business cycles is among the favorite choices of Marxian economists. There has been a bulk of literature on these particular subjects since Marx’s Capital was published. What is rather unbelievable, however, is that Marxian economics had not been able to clarify the fundamental cause of economic crises and the mechanism of business cycles satisfactorily before Kozo Uno’s monumental achievement. Uno’s crisis theory, at its most abstract level, addresses two basic questions. One is to show the fundamental cause of crises in the actual process of capital accumulation, and this occurs in the context of the theory of profit. The other is to show the concrete mechanisms that explain the outbreak of crises, and this occurs in the context of the theory of credit. Uno sought to prove, not the breakdown of capitalism, but the logical necessity of crises and business cycles in a purely capitalist economy. His crisis theory also gives us an important insight into the historical treatment of crises and business cycles,² even though an abstract theory must not be directly applied to a concrete-historical analysis, except by the mediation of a mid-range theory, i.e., Uno’s so-called stage theory.³