>From former listmember, Jurriaan/ YFTR, Jerry ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jurriaan Bendien" <j.bendien@wolmail.nl> To: <Gerald_A_Levy@email.msn.com> Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 3:28 PM Subject: Counteracting factors Two important counteracting factors to the tendency of the rate of profit to decline which Marx doesn't explicitly list are the abbreviation of the turnover time of capital (or if you like an increase in the rotation speed of the capital stock) and the arms industry (see Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism). Nor does Marx discuss the macro-economic effect of the stratification of fixed capital on the replacement of fixed capital (see Geert Reuten's article in CER). Marx doesn't really discuss various types of "creative accounting", through which declining realised returns are compensated for by increasing depreciation charges, transfer pricing or revaluing inventories etc. Further Marx doesn't discuss how, in inflationary times or under monopolistic conditions, businesses can simply raise their output prices to offset declining returns. More generally, many of the counteracting factors which Marx lists should be re-examined in the modern context, where they may operate rather differently than from the past. Global corporations may be able to take advantage of geographical disparities to enhance profits, in ways that they could not in Marx's day. To say that the falling rate of profit is offset by a rising rate of exploitation, is to refer really to a host of variables some of which are really "non-economic". For example, smashing or neutralising trade union power, or creating changes in organisational culture, or improving the productive capacity of labour, can help increase the rate of exploitation. Regards Jurriaan Bendien
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