[OPE-L:6153] Re: Re: Re: Re: falling profits

From: Fred B. Moseley (fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu)
Date: Sun Nov 04 2001 - 09:16:31 EST


Rakesh, I deleted by mistake your 6150, asking about the relative
contributions of the rate of surplus-value and the composition of capital
in the partial recovery of the profit rate from the 1970s to 1994.

According to my estimates, the increase in the rate of surplus-value and
the decline in the composition of capital (due to the devaluation of
capital and the decline in the price of raw materials, especially oil)
contributed about equally to the improvement in the rate of profit during
this period.  

But my main point is that the recovery of the rate of profit was only
partial.  Less than half of the prior decline in the rate of profit was
restored, because these two factors were offset by continued increases in
the ratio of unproductive labor to productive labor, so that the rate of
profit in 1994 was still roughly 30% its earlier postwar peak.  The same
point is true today.  Please see my RRPE 1997 paper "The Rate of Profit
and the Future of Capitalism".  

Comradely,
Fred



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