The Falling Rate of Profit in the Postwar United States Economy

Presents an empirical test of Marx's theory of the "falling rate of profit" by deriving estimates of the Marxian rate of profit and its determinants for the post-World War II US economy in order to determine whether the trends in these variables were in the directions predicted by Marx's theory.

Inhalt
Part 1 Marx's theory of the falling rate of profit: increase in the composition of capital? - definition of the composition of capital; theory of the tendency to increase; composition of capital increase faster than the rate of surplus-value? - Marx's argument; formal model with a constant real wage; formal model with an increasing real wage; Okishio's theorem - the theorem, criticisms, evaluation. Part 2 Conceptual issues in the estimation of the Marxian variables: money or labour units; non-capitalist production; non-production capital (productive labour/unproductive labour); residential housing; taxes on wages; recent criticisms of Marx's concepts of productive labour and unproductive labour. Part 3 Estimates of the Marxian variables for the postwar US economy: rate of surplus-value - composition of capital; technical composition of capital; value composition of capital; organic composition of capital; distribution of capital across industries; turnover time of capital; multiple shifts; rate of profit; comparison with Weisskopf's estimates; comparison with Wolff's estimates; estimates of the Marxian variables, 1977-87. Part 4 The decline of the conventional rate of profit: "profit squeeze" explanations; Weisskopf - "rising strength of labour"; Wolff - "slower productivity growth"; summary; Marxian explanation - Marxian theory of the conventional rate of profit; estimates of the Marxian determinants; share of profit; empirical test. Part 5 The causes of the increase of unproductive labour: detailed estimates of unproductive labour; commercial labour; financial labour; finance; insurance and real estate; supervision labour - causes of increases; effects of increase; conclusions. Part 6 Conclusion: main conclusions; further research; future trends; limits of government policies. Appendices: detailed estimates; sources and methods; assessment of bias.