Economic Crisis of Overproduction, a phase of the capitalist cycle in which the basic proportions of reproduction that were disturbed during the development of the capitalist economy are restored forcibly and temporarily. Economic crises involve an absolute fall in production, reduced capital investment, rising unemployment, an increase in bankruptcies, lower share prices, inflation and other economic woes. The basic contradiction of capitalism is the principal cause of the economic crises of overproduction. Capitalist production, because of the social division of labour, concentration of capital and centralisation of capital, becomes increasingly socialised. But because of the private ownership of the means of production, social production is subordinated to the interests and will of private owners who strive to make maximum profits. It is this striving that leads to the growth or reduction of production of one product or another. As Marx pointed out, "The contradiction between the general social power into which capital develops, on the one hand, and the private power of the individual capitalists over these social conditions of production, on the other, becomes ever more irreconcilable, and yet contains the solution of the problem" (K.Marx, Capital, Vol. Ill, p. 264). But as long as this relation is preserved, the contradiction between social character of production and private form of appropriation of the products of labour, although it cannot be resolved completely, is resolved partially, and manifests itself in economic crises of overproduction, giving capitalist production a cyclic character (see Cycle, Capitalist). These crises occur with the inexorableness of an objective law. A number of contradictions, ensuing from the main contradiction of capitalism, bring the capitalist economy to overproduction crises. Under capitalism, the possibility of using the productive forces in accordance with their social nature is limited by the narrow framework of individual enterprises, companies or corporations. It is only there that economic processes are consciously organised, while anarchy (see Anarchy of Production) reigns in capitalist social production on the whole, fragmented among individuals or companies. Capitalists manufacture their commodities without bothering to consider effective demand and social requirements for them. Meanwhile modern technology and science allow owners to rapidly increase production by increasing the labour productivity and lowering production costs. The inexorable laws of competition that threaten doom to those who fail to keep up, make this an unconditional necessity. The market’s ability to extensively and intensively expand is displayed, however, with less vigour. Hence, constantly arising gigantic disproportions of the capitalist economy are inevitable. Therefore, as Lenin pointed out, "for capitalism there must be a crisis so as to create a constantly disturbed proportion" (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.3, p. 618). Disparity between production and consumption, the relative narrowness of consumption of the masses compared to the possibilities of production, is one of the most characteristic disproportions of the capitalist economy. The relative and at times absolute drop in the purchasing power of the working people becomes an insurmountable barrier to the unrestrained growth of capitalist production; manufactures cannot be sold, and it becomes difficult to market the social product; production declines and an economic crisis of overproduction sets in. But this overproduction is relative. The consumer power of capitalist society depends not on the absolute demand of that society for consumer goods, but on the share of the national income at the disposal of the working people, i. e. on the antagonistic relations of distribution. The desire to derive as much profit as possible compels capitalists to improve machines and production technology. However, the growth of the technical composition of capital and the organic composition of capital in the final analysis leads to a drop in the rate of profit, thus cooling incentives to expand production and reducing the demand for additional means of production. This also leads to an overproduction of the means of production. Economic crises 101 graphically show capitalism’s rapacious attitude to social wealth and the productive forces. While partially resolving capitalist contradictions, overproduction crises at the same time further aggravate them. To influence the process of social production bourgeois governments use methods such as the militarisation of the economy of capitalist countries, subsidising of the monopolies with the taxpayers’ money, tax and credit regulation, etc. But such measures can only yield a partial effect. Methods of state-monopoly regulation are powerless in the face of anarchy both in these countries and on the scale of the world capitalist economic system. This is testified in part by the 1974-75 economic crisis of overproduction, which swept the entire capitalist world and which in force and depth can only be compared with the 1929-33 crisis. In the early 1980s, the economy of several capitalist countries once again entered a crisis period. Throughout these years, the general crisis of capitalism continued to deepen. Capitalism, of course, has not stopped developing, but it has experienced three slumps between 1970 and 1980. This refutes the theories of bourgeois science and modern revisionism of the possibility of crisis-free capitalist development and the ability of the monopolies and bourgeois states to eliminate crises. Modern capitalism uses the scientific and technological revolution to expand the social character of production; it intensifies the conflict between the productive forces created by it and the capitalist relations of production.