Beyond the Phillips Curve:

Inflation, Technological Change, and the Accumulation of Surplus Value in Contemporary Capitalist Economies

Abstract

This study analyzes the relationship between inflation, unemployment, and technological change from a Marxist perspective, using data from the U.S. economy between 1968 and 2021. Contrary to the conventional theory that posits an inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment (the Phillips Curve), our findings reveal that no such significant long-term relationship exists. Instead, we find a positive correlation between research and development (R&D) expenditure — used here as a proxy for technological change — and inflation. This supports the Marxist argument that the capitalist class employs inflation as a mechanism to transform the temporary effects of extraordinary surplus value (initially obtained by innovative capitalists) into permanent relative surplus value for the capitalist class as a whole.
Through Bayesian correlation analyses, Granger causality tests, and error correction models (ECM), this study provides empirical evidence in favor of the Marxist theory of inflation and challenges its characterization as a purely monetary phenomenon.

Clasificación JEL: B51, C11, C52E24, E31, O33, P16