The specific, recurring reference to financial crises happening “once in every ten years” under capitalism is found in several works by both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, particularly when they were analyzing the concrete economic history of the 19th century.
One of the most clear and frequently cited sources is Engels’s preface to the 1892 edition of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, where he attributes the observation directly to the authors of the Communist Manifesto (Marx and himself).
Key Passage
In this preface, Engels writes about the cyclical nature of crises:
“The whole industrial world, the production and exchange of all civilised peoples and of their more or less barbarian dependent people are dislocated practically once in every ten years. Trade comes to a standstill, the markets are glutted, the products lie in great masses, unsaleable, ready money disappears, credit vanishes, the factories are idle, the working masses go short of food because they have produced too much food, bankruptcy follows upon bankruptcy, forced sale upon forced sale.”
Other Relevant Sources
Friedrich Engels, Anti-Dühring (or Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science): A similar observation about the decennial cycle of crisis (boom and bust) is present here, often used to illustrate the fundamental contradictions of capitalism.
Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 1 (and later volumes edited by Engels): While Marx’s ultimate theory of crises rests on the fundamental contradiction of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall, the cyclical nature of crises based on the 10-year boom-and-bust cycle, particularly from 1825 to 1867, is referenced in his discussion of the industrial cycle. For example, in a letter or earlier draft, Marx notes the decennial cycle of stagnation, prosperity, overproduction, and crisis.
The 10-year period was an empirical observation based on the major crises that occurred in the first half of the 19th century (e.g., 1825, 1837, 1847, 1857, 1866). Marx and Engels used this regularity as evidence of the inherent, structural instability of the capitalist system.
Citations: [1]
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spoiler
The specific, recurring reference to financial crises happening “once in every ten years” under capitalism is found in several works by both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, particularly when they were analyzing the concrete economic history of the 19th century.
One of the most clear and frequently cited sources is Engels’s preface to the 1892 edition of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, where he attributes the observation directly to the authors of the Communist Manifesto (Marx and himself).
Key Passage
In this preface, Engels writes about the cyclical nature of crises:
Other Relevant Sources
The 10-year period was an empirical observation based on the major crises that occurred in the first half of the 19th century (e.g., 1825, 1837, 1847, 1857, 1866). Marx and Engels used this regularity as evidence of the inherent, structural instability of the capitalist system. Citations: [1]
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