{"id":249153,"date":"2026-10-01T01:59:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T20:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=249153"},"modified":"2026-10-01T01:59:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T20:29:34","slug":"who-can-buy-what-workers-produce-the-fundamental-contradiction-of-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/who-can-buy-what-workers-produce-the-fundamental-contradiction-of-capitalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Can Buy What Workers Produce? The Fundamental Contradiction Of Capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sugath Amarasekera<\/a>\u00a0\u2013<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Sugath Amarasekera<\/p><\/div>\n

A fundamental strength of capitalist production is its capacity to mobilise and efficiently combine virtually every resource that capital can command\u2014labour, finance, technology, natural resources and productive capacity\u2014to produce goods and services for the market. Yet production can expand only to the extent that those goods and services can ultimately be purchased. Their economic value is realised through effective market demand.<\/p>\n

This creates a fundamental contradiction within the capitalist system.<\/p>\n

The workers who produce goods and services may not receive sufficient income to purchase the quantity of goods and services they collectively produce. Wages represent only part of the value generated in production, while the remaining economic surplus accrues primarily to capital owners and other claimants on income.<\/p>\n

This provides the foundation for the accumulation and concentration of wealth among those who control surplus income. A substantial portion of this surplus may then be reinvested, but investment decisions are ultimately guided by the prospect of profitability. Capital therefore tends to flow towards markets where purchasing power and expected returns are greatest.<\/p>\n

As a result, productive capacity can increasingly be directed towards goods and services demanded by higher-income groups, while insufficient investment may flow towards goods and services that the majority of the population needs but cannot afford at prevailing prices. The problem is not necessarily a lack of productive capacity; it is the distribution of purchasing power needed to utilise that capacity.<\/p>\n

Credit: Bridging the Gap Between Income and Consumption<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Credit can temporarily bridge this gap.<\/p>\n

Workers and households whose current incomes are insufficient to purchase desired goods and services can borrow against expected future income. Banks and other financial institutions thereby transform anticipated future purchasing power into present demand. Consumers obtain goods and services today while committing a portion of their future income to repayment of principal and interest.<\/p>\n

In this way, credit can enable aggregate demand to expand beyond what current household incomes alone would permit.<\/p>\n

The banking system can amplify this process by creating new purchasing power through lending rather than merely redistributing existing deposits. The frequently repeated claim that banks simply lend eight or ten times their deposits, however, is an oversimplification of modern banking. Bank lending is constrained by capital requirements, liquidity, regulation, creditworthiness, risk and the availability of borrowers who are considered sufficiently creditworthy and profitable.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the creation of bank credit can substantially expand purchasing power and support economic activity beyond what existing money balances would otherwise permit.<\/p>\n

This provides an important mechanism through which a capitalist economy can move from one level of production and consumption to a higher level. Entrepreneurs expand productive capacity in anticipation of demand; investment creates employment and incomes; rising incomes generate further demand; and consumer credit can provide additional purchasing power.<\/p>\n

For a period, therefore, debt-supported demand can help reconcile expanding productive capacity with inadequate current household income.<\/p>\n

But Debt Cannot Eliminate the Underlying Contradiction<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Credit, however, cannot permanently resolve the underlying problem.<\/p>\n

Borrowing brings future repayment obligations. As household debt accumulates, an increasing proportion of future income must be devoted to servicing past consumption. Debt repayment therefore transfers purchasing power from the future back to the financial system.<\/p>\n

At some point, debt-service obligations can begin to constrain current consumption and investment. When borrowers can no longer service their debts, the process can reverse: credit contracts, consumption falls, businesses reduce production, investment declines and unemployment can rise.<\/p>\n

The adjustment can take different forms depending on economic conditions and policy responses. It may involve inflation, asset-price corrections, defaults, recession or deflation\u2014or some combination of these.<\/p>\n

Debt can therefore postpone a demand constraint, but it cannot eliminate it indefinitely.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s Post-2022 Adjustment<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sri Lanka’s post-2022 experience illustrates a different form of adjustment.<\/p>\n

The restoration of external and fiscal stability was accompanied by a sharp depreciation of the rupee, very high inflation and a substantial reduction in real household purchasing power. The adjustment therefore occurred not primarily through a rapid expansion of productive capacity and household incomes, but to a significant extent through a contraction in real consumption.<\/p>\n

Lower import demand, reduced domestic consumption and weaker household purchasing power helped relieve pressure on foreign exchange and external balances. These developments can contribute to macroeconomic stabilisation. But stabilisation itself should not be confused with an equivalent expansion of the economy’s productive potential.<\/p>\n

A large part of the adjustment was borne by households through the erosion of real incomes and purchasing power.<\/p>\n

This raises an important question for Sri Lanka: What kind of stability do we want to build?<\/p>\n

Is it sufficient to achieve macroeconomic stability partly by suppressing purchasing power and reducing consumption? Or should the objective be to move towards a form of stability based on expanding productive capacity, employment, real incomes, technological capability and export earnings?<\/p>\n

The distinction is fundamental.<\/p>\n

From Stability Through Contraction to Stability Through Expansion<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

A sustainable economic expansion requires purchasing power to grow alongside productive capacity.<\/p>\n

If workers’ real incomes remain insufficient to absorb a growing volume of production, the economy becomes increasingly dependent on other sources of demand\u2014household borrowing, government deficits, external demand, asset-price expansion or some combination of these.<\/p>\n

Each mechanism has limitations.<\/p>\n

Household borrowing eventually encounters the constraint of debt-servicing capacity. Government deficits are constrained by fiscal capacity and, in countries dependent on foreign financing, external sustainability. Export-led demand depends on international competitiveness and access to foreign markets. Asset-price expansion can generate temporary wealth effects but can also produce financial instability.<\/p>\n

The more durable solution is therefore to increase productivity while ensuring that a sufficient share of the resulting economic gains returns to households in the form of sustainable real incomes.<\/p>\n

That requires more than simply expanding credit. It requires investment in productive industries, technology, skills, infrastructure, research and development, energy security and export capacity\u2014while ensuring that productivity gains translate into broad-based improvements in living standards.<\/p>\n

The Political Economy of the Contradiction<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is where the issue becomes more than a purely economic question.<\/p>\n

Workers are repeatedly told\u2014by politicians across the political spectrum\u2014that the economic system, if properly managed, will eventually deliver prosperity and reduce poverty. Yet economic growth by itself does not guarantee that the benefits of increased production will be distributed sufficiently broadly to provide the majority with the purchasing power necessary to participate fully in that growth.<\/p>\n

The people who provide the labour, skills and effort that make production possible cannot be treated merely as a cost of production. They are also the consumers whose purchasing power ultimately sustains the market for the goods and services they help produce.<\/p>\n

This is the central issue that deserves much greater attention in public debate.<\/p>\n

If the economic system continuously concentrates an increasing share of income and wealth while leaving a large proportion of society with insufficient purchasing power, then poverty cannot be addressed simply by promising faster growth. Growth must be accompanied by mechanisms that expand productive employment, raise real incomes, improve productivity and distribute the gains from economic development sufficiently widely to sustain demand.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, workers can find themselves trapped in a cycle in which they produce more, but are unable to consume proportionately more without borrowing.<\/p>\n

The Fundamental Contradiction<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The deeper contradiction can therefore be stated simply:<\/p>\n

Capitalism is exceptionally effective at mobilising resources and expanding productive capacity. But the sustainability of that productive capacity ultimately depends on the purchasing power of society.<\/p>\n

If production expands faster than sustainable purchasing power, credit can temporarily bridge the gap. But when debt accumulates beyond the capacity of households and businesses to service it, the mechanism that previously supported demand can become a constraint on further expansion.<\/p>\n

The challenge, therefore, is not simply to produce more.<\/p>\n

It is to build an economy in which productive capacity, purchasing power and the distribution of economic gains develop together.<\/p>\n

For Sri Lanka, this means moving beyond an economic model in which stability is achieved partly through reduced consumption and suppressed household purchasing power. The longer-term objective should be stability founded on expanding production, higher productivity, productive employment, rising real incomes and stronger export capacity.<\/p>\n

Unless this fundamental relationship between production and purchasing power is addressed, promises of prosperity and poverty reduction will remain incomplete.<\/p>\n

The workers who produce the wealth of society deserve not merely the promise of a better future, but an economic system in which their capacity to consume, live and prosper grows alongside the wealth they help create.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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