Capital, credit and the business cycle in Marx

Resumo

The purpose of this paper is to identify two inconsistencies that are found in the third chapter of Marx's Das Kapital, dedicated to the study of credit. In the first one Marx states that the distinction between commercial and bank credit is only nominal, but he resorts to it in order to provide an explanation for the nineteenth century crisis in England, thus implying that the distinction was not only nominal, but real. The second inconsistency is noticed between Marx’s statement that real and money capital move in opposite directions during the trade cycle (with-out an explanation of how it is possible), and the second book of The Capital where Marx states that capital in the form of money and real capital must move in the same directions during the business cycle