Fernando Alcoforado*
This article seeks to demonstrate that the world capitalist system is coming to an end in the middle of the 21st century, putting the need for its replacement by a new economic system that is capable of promoting economic and social progress at the levels of each country and of the planet Earth as a whole. This finding results from the fact that this study identifies that: 1) the evolution of the profit rate of the world capitalist system from 1869 to 2007 declines in this period with the tendency to achieve zero profit between 2097 and 2142; 2) there is a decline in the rate of profit to the historical cost of fixed capital of US corporations which, if maintained over the next few years, this rate of profit for US corporations will reach zero in 2059; and, 3) the world economy shows a steady decline in its growth from 1961 to 2007, which is expected to reach zero growth in 2057. It can be said that the profit rate of the world capitalist system will probably be zero since 2057 and not 2097 and 2142 because the rate of profit could not grow beyond zero in a world economy with the World Gross Product of zero value, ie stagnated, from 2057. The fact that the rate of profit at the historical cost of fixed capital of corporations in the United States, the world’s largest economy, tending to zero in 2059 seems to indicate 2057 as more reliable than 2097 and 2142 so that the world profit rate reaches zero. This means that the world capitalist system will be brought to an end by the middle of the twenty-first century because the process of capital accumulation will be stalled when the world profit rate and the Gross World Product reach zero.
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* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of 14 books addressing issues such as Globalization and Development, Brazilian Economy, Global Warming and Climate Change, The Factors that Condition Economic and Social Development, Energy in the world and The Great Scientific, Economic, and Social Revolutions that Changed the World.