Michael,
Your notes are helpful. I am a bit surprised
by the seemingly minor interest that 19th
& even 20th century capitalists had in the
"problem." Marx seemed once again ahead
of his time. Implicit in his work is the notion
of straight-line depreciation. In Vol III of
CAPITAL he seems to anticipate the need
for accelerated depreciation. In none
of J.S. Mill's work do we find any of this.
I do note that one author you list is one that
turns up in my limited research -- Richard P.
Brief. His work on the 19th controversies
might be worth a look. I am having difficulty
turning up any of his stuff.
In my biz world, I've talked to a couple of
CPA's and for them history doesn't exist. But
one point of interest might be the IRS regs on
the matter (Post 1917, obviously) since at
some point the IRS required corps to make their
earnings reports conform to their tax returns.
The search continues.
John
P.S. We still have to nail down the notes of Marx
on turnover and crisis written after the publication
of Book I of CAPITAL.