On this matter of contradictory tendencies, there is a broad theory of uneven development (see, eg, Neil Smith's 1984/1990 Blackwell book of the same name) which incorporates the problem within Marxist theory. There's a debate, I recall, about whether you locate this - and disproportionality more generally - in `differences of aptitude... fertility between animals or soils, innumerable accidents of human life or the cycle of nature' as Mandel does (in Marxist Economic Theory). Or, whether geographical equalization and differentiation of capital - which is what we're essentially getting at, I think - traces only so far back to the division of labor that developed with capitalism. (For Mandel, it's the basis for establishing the roots of savings and credit, so an important historical problem.) Whichever, my own point would be that such uneven development (over sectors or space or even scale) is exacerbated during those periods - like the 1980s `Deal Decade' - when financial capital is ascendant. I wonder whether Doug's citation underestimates the problem, by failing to distinguish between profits derived from financial as opposed to productive activities (I am guessing, based on the Brookings source). Intuitively, I would guess those profit differentials would be even more divergent if such a breakdown was available. Doug, this distinction is in your Wall Street book, no doubt?
