一般利润率趋于下降规律是马克思政治经济学最重要的规律，它集中突显了资本主义生产方式的内在矛盾，揭露了资本主义生产方式终究是“事与愿违”的历史局限性。这一规律同价值转形理论一样受到了来自各方的质疑，也经历了近百年的论战，大致可以划分为四个时期。经济学家们通过数学、实证等各种方式对马克思的一般利润率趋于下降规律进行了正方的辩护或反方的质疑。其中置言信雄对这一问题的深入分析影响广泛。

The law of the declining general rate of profit is the most important law of Marx's political economy, which highlights the inherent contradictions of the capitalist mode of production and exposes the historical limitations of the capitalist mode of production, which is ultimately "contrary to what one wishes for". This law, like the theory of the transmutation of value, has been questioned from all sides, and has undergone nearly a century of polemics, which can be roughly divided into four periods. Economists have defended or challenged Marx's general law of the declining rate of profit in various ways, including mathematically and empirically. Among them, Nobuo Ishiyama's in-depth analysis of the issue was widely influential.