That’s the crux of it for me. As the rate of profit falls, capitalists turn to fictitious capital instead of just saying “this is as far as we can reasonably grow”. This is what a capitalist means when they say they’re a risk-taker. They have enough of their own or someone else’s money to throw away on a horse race.
It’s not even that, they do this shit even when profit rates are high. Falling rate of profit is just a consequence of increased productivity (less variable/labor capital means more constant/means of production capital).
This is just what they do because they don’t even understand how their system works and refuse to acknowledge it. Also because they control the state, they know that they’ll survive crises and the crises actually reduce labor costs/increase labor competition which drives up profits (for the individual/large capitalist). Literally a win win for them.
