>Well, empirically speaking - which I know is embarrassingly vulgar - >the best explanation for changes in investment is the change in >profits. Marx's argument in this excerpt just doesn't sound right.
Doug, I am not necessarily disagreeing. I am saying that as long as a falling rate of profit is accompanied by a rising mass of profit, accumulation may indeed accelerate; however at some point a rising mass of profit may not compensate for the falling rate of profit. The anticipated mass of profit no longer compensates for a weak or falling rate of profit, which then discourages capitalists from making the level of investment (workers' wages are of course part of overall investment) that is needed to sell their product and realize profits. This may cause a shift of course to the innovatory investments that Michael P and Jim D are talking about. The question I am putting forth however is simple (and your empirical evaluation would be most helpful): did the capitalist class come to fear that high investment levels would outstrip the valorization base that was in fact available to them? That is, did the limit to accumulation become the shortage of easily exploitable labor? Overtime was reaching heights during the boom, it seems. May I underline that the shortage of labor theory is consistent of course with the labor theory of value? I am also not advancing a class struggle thesis of profit squeeze to which I think you, Jim O Connor, Negri and others are sympathetic. Though I may be inching towards it here. rb
