Intensive accumulation, the key to understanding modern capitalism?[L'accumulation intensive, norme de lecture du capitalisme ?]

A theory on contemporary capitalism has recently been evolved by a group of french researchers : the theory of intensive accumulation. This theory holds a dominant place in the field of marxist reflexion in France. The object of this article is to show that in spite of its merits, this theory offers only a one-sided view of the nature of contemporary capitalism. On emphasizing a form of self-developing capital, this analysis tends to accentuate this structure as being hyper coherent, thus leaving little or no place for an understanding of the crisis. In this critical essay, the authors have put forward an alternative point of view based on a double tendency: on one hand a massive and deep growth of capitalism, on the other the discovery of negative elements.