Bill Jeffries: > The point about over-accumulation is that it has to be relative to profit > rates, it is in effect the same thing as saying that the rate of profit is > falling. > > Ticktin in his article claims that the rate of profit is falling, but > produces no empirical data to substantiate his claim. > > Chris Harman to his credit, at least tries to engage with the data in his > latest article in ISJ 118, and registers the fact that most Marxist and > bourgeois economics commentators, refer to the recovery in profit rates > since the turn of the millennium, but then dismisses them, preferring > instead to go with Robert Brenner. > > Brenner, pretty much alone of the castrophists has at least tried to work > out the rate of profit, but his estimates critically leave out financial > profits, which now account for 40% of all profits, executive remuneration, > which has doubled as a proportion of national income over the last couple of > decades and foreign profits, which have similarly doubled.
is Brenner really a "catastrophist"? what do Jeffries mean here? > His estimate for the rate of profit does not then include the majority of > profits, unsurprisingly therefore, it doesn't show a great recovery. FWIW, financial profits aren't doing very well right now, since mid-2006. If total profits are more dependent on financial profits, that makes them more vulnerable to financial disasters. > How then to explain the present crisis if rates of profit have generally > recovered? Firstly of course, there has been a decline in the USA since > around mid 2006, although only marginally it should be said. I think the > present crisis can be best explained as a major disproportion in one section > of production - residential housing - combined with a major financial crisis > - rather than a general crisis of over-accumulation. > If this is correct of course, it means that there will not be a great > depression or anything like it, even if the present US crisis still has some > way to go, but that its effects will be very significantly offset by the > growth of the world economy, which is not so dependent on US consumer demand > as the left would have us believe. why can't there be another cause of a great depression besides over-accumulation (as the Jeffries defines it)? BTW, the evidence I've seen indicates that the rate of profit was rising in the US before 1929, especially in manufacturing, the corporate sector. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
