Is “The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation” Still Valid? An Analysis Based on Direct and Indirect Marxian Effects

Marx asserts that capital accumulation has been sample accompanied by the accumulation of industrial reserve army and surplus population. Contemporarily, this expansion has been fed by two tendencies. First, the change in the technical composition of capital makes a part of waged employment redundant. Second, migration-induced-growth of labor force has enlarged the size of industrial reserve army. In this respect, labor force growth itself is a function of accumulation/growth rather than vice versa. We call the first tendency as “direct Marxian effect” while the second one is “indirect Marxian effect”. For a list of 60 countries, this study estimates the direct and indirect Marixan elasticity of industrial reserve army and its components to accumulation/growth. The results indicate that “the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation” holds for the majority of countries.