At 2:13 PM 4/28/95, Jim Devine wrote [responding to my observation on the failure of the disperson of profit rates to narrow during the 1980s]: >Just because capitalism involves a tendency for profit rates to >equalize between sectors (in the absense of barriers to mobility) >doesn't mean that profit rates actually equalize. As Farjoun and >Machover argue: > >"in a capitalist economy, the very forces of competition, _which >are internal to the system_, are responsible not only for pulling >an abnormally high or low rate of profit back towards normality, >_but also for creating such 'abnormal' rates of profit in the first >place." (LAWS OF CHAOS, Verso, 1983, p. 34, their emphasis) > >Not only is there an endogenous tendency for profit rates to >equalize, but endogenous tendencies toward >innovation, centralization, etc. >lead to disequalization. I don't think Marx really took this >conflict of opposing tendencies as seriously as he should have. >(He followed Ricardo to assume equalization when >discussing the so-called transformation problem. My article >on that problem in the 1990 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY >tries to get away from the Ricardian assumption.) My point wasn't that there's a wide dispersion of profit rates, which is obvious enough, but that the decade's deal frenzy, which should in theory have tended to reduce dispersion, had no effect. Isn't that a teensy bit interesting? Doug -- Doug Henwood [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax
