> I'm going to have Brenner on my radio show tomorrow (WBAI, New York, 99.5
> FM, sometime between 5 & 6 PM). Anyone besides Rakesh who wants to suggests
> questions/comments, I'm all ears.
Brenner makes his entire argument rest on the big drop in rate of profit from the rate in the period 1950-1973 to that in the period 1973-1998 (e.g., see his table 1 on p.5). He argues that the decline in profit rate causes decline in investment causes decline in rate of growth of productivity. He says "To explain the origins and evolution of the long downturn through an analysis of the causes and effects of changes in profitability is thus the objective of this study." But, as for the United States, the profit rate of 1950-1973 represented as much a drop from that of 1925-1950, as that of 1973-1998 from 1950-1973. Indeed 1925-1950 represented an even greater drop from that of 1900-1925. [For 1900-50 my source is my oldest brother's 1963 Columbia doctoral thesis. And even if it were the case that different things were being measured or the computations in some other fashion differed - and I cannot tell since nowhere does Brenner set out in detail how the rates he uses are determined - it would not matter, as all this would say is that the thesis would be falsified by measuring things differently.] Therefore - at least for the U.S. - the drop in the rate of profit must explain the entire 20th century as a "long downturn" (very long), or nothing much at all, no?
John Mage