This question <1549|1584> overall <1557|1559> Thugtorious: <1557|1567>. graded A  
  Question 378: Describe how and why commodity circulation contains the possibility of crisis.   
  [1558] Thugtorious: Crisis.   A crisis, or the potential for a crisis, is a situation where two things are separate that should be unified. The actual crisis itself is when these two things are reunified. The potential for a crisis in commodity circulation comes about when the exchange process is subdivided into two acts: the sale and the purchase. As Marx says, this division allows the process to transcend space and time barriers. A person that sells a good does not need to immediately purchase another good. Within M-C-M' circulation a person can choose to hoard their money instead of injecting directly back into circulation. Since these two aspects should be unified in exchange, and they have been divorced in commodity circulation, the potential for a crisis exists. However, for the crisis to be realized, there must be a larger sequence of events to bring about the reunification.   
  Hans: Yes, your last sentence is important. This is only a very abstract possibility of crises, and deeper contradictions, like capitalism's tendency for overproduction, are needed to realize this possibility.   
 
 
 
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