To put it basically; Capitalism is based on a lot of sets of ideas that can't all be true at the same time; Capitalists think that markets breed competition and competition leads to innovation, efficiency, and better products. But it's pretty obvious that if you observe markets they lead to coruption, stagnation, constantly falling product quality, and monopolies. For Capitalists (as an ideology) to justify their support for capitalism they need the first premise to be true. But as time goes on and Capitalism becomes more powerful and advances through it's life span it becomes harder and harder to ignore that it doesn't actually do any of the things Capitalists claim it does. That's the contradiction - The difference between the theoretical capitalism of economists and the observed capitalism of reality. Those contradictions become more and more obvious over time as the system increasingly devours the very systems - labor, resources - that sustain it until eventually it's obvious to everyone that it's an unsustainable destructive mess. For decades the only thing that's kept it functioning are events like the 2007 Financial Crisis where governments step in, and in absolute refutation of all capitalist theory they stabilize the rapidly exploding system by more or less taking control and shoving cash at the problem or breaking the law in massive ways. That buys them about another decade of pretending the system works until they have to do it again. That's where we are right now - the system is so overburdened by it's own contradictions that to save it the capitalists who allegedly believe in free market competition and other fairy tales are deliberately raising interest rates to crash the world economy to fend off any possibility of labor gaining power. They know that at this point, with everything a barely functional shambles, any serious labor power has the potential to spread exponentially and fatally wound the system in ways it probably couldn't come back from.
Theorists - Please check me if I'm full of shit, this is how I understand the concept based on my limited reading.
I hate to be that person, but this line of thinking is what leads people to believe that capitalism can be fixed, i.e. capitalism in theory vs capitalismin in practice. The contradictions that Marx spoke of are the irreconcilable differences between competing interests that are inherent in a capitalist system. For example, full employment vs inflation or infinite growth vs finite resources or the interests of finance capital vs industrial capital.
Edit: wanted to add this for clarity. The corruption and all the other things you mention are a result of contradictions. Think of it like symptoms of a disease. You have a cold (capitalism) that's causing sneezing, lethargy, congestion, fever (corruption, monopolies, corporate takeover of politics). You could continually try to fight back the symptoms with OTC drugs (regulation or deregulation depending on which flavor of liberal you are) which do nothing to combat the actual virus or you could try to eradicate the virus causing the symptoms. It's an important distinction because if we think of the contradictions as symptoms then we can fall into the trap of trying to relieve the symptoms as opposed to eradicating the disease. The contradictions are the RNA of the virus, itself, it cannot exist without them.
It isnt contradictions in what it actually is and what liberal economics claim it is.
The contradictions come from a lot of things that need to be true for capitalism to function but destroy the conditions for each other. Capitalism is profit seeking, and automation necessary to be competitive within the capitalist system reduces long term profits, is a good example
To put it basically; Capitalism is based on a lot of sets of ideas that can't all be true at the same time; Capitalists think that markets breed competition and competition leads to innovation, efficiency, and better products. But it's pretty obvious that if you observe markets they lead to coruption, stagnation, constantly falling product quality, and monopolies. For Capitalists (as an ideology) to justify their support for capitalism they need the first premise to be true. But as time goes on and Capitalism becomes more powerful and advances through it's life span it becomes harder and harder to ignore that it doesn't actually do any of the things Capitalists claim it does. That's the contradiction - The difference between the theoretical capitalism of economists and the observed capitalism of reality. Those contradictions become more and more obvious over time as the system increasingly devours the very systems - labor, resources - that sustain it until eventually it's obvious to everyone that it's an unsustainable destructive mess. For decades the only thing that's kept it functioning are events like the 2007 Financial Crisis where governments step in, and in absolute refutation of all capitalist theory they stabilize the rapidly exploding system by more or less taking control and shoving cash at the problem or breaking the law in massive ways. That buys them about another decade of pretending the system works until they have to do it again. That's where we are right now - the system is so overburdened by it's own contradictions that to save it the capitalists who allegedly believe in free market competition and other fairy tales are deliberately raising interest rates to crash the world economy to fend off any possibility of labor gaining power. They know that at this point, with everything a barely functional shambles, any serious labor power has the potential to spread exponentially and fatally wound the system in ways it probably couldn't come back from.
Theorists - Please check me if I'm full of shit, this is how I understand the concept based on my limited reading.
I hate to be that person, but this line of thinking is what leads people to believe that capitalism can be fixed, i.e. capitalism in theory vs capitalismin in practice. The contradictions that Marx spoke of are the irreconcilable differences between competing interests that are inherent in a capitalist system. For example, full employment vs inflation or infinite growth vs finite resources or the interests of finance capital vs industrial capital.
Edit: wanted to add this for clarity. The corruption and all the other things you mention are a result of contradictions. Think of it like symptoms of a disease. You have a cold (capitalism) that's causing sneezing, lethargy, congestion, fever (corruption, monopolies, corporate takeover of politics). You could continually try to fight back the symptoms with OTC drugs (regulation or deregulation depending on which flavor of liberal you are) which do nothing to combat the actual virus or you could try to eradicate the virus causing the symptoms. It's an important distinction because if we think of the contradictions as symptoms then we can fall into the trap of trying to relieve the symptoms as opposed to eradicating the disease. The contradictions are the RNA of the virus, itself, it cannot exist without them.
It isnt contradictions in what it actually is and what liberal economics claim it is.
The contradictions come from a lot of things that need to be true for capitalism to function but destroy the conditions for each other. Capitalism is profit seeking, and automation necessary to be competitive within the capitalist system reduces long term profits, is a good example