FROP etc

John Gulick jlgulick at sfo.com
Thu Feb 17 09:33:11 PST 2000


RO wrote:


>Second, due to efficiencies in capital
>goods industries, the value (cost) of that plant and equipment doesn't rise
>nearly as fast as its mass, so that counteracts some of the pressure for profit
>rates to fall.


>From this, are we to conclude -- everything else
being equal (which it never is) -- that one countervailing tendency to the FROP is productivity in capital goods production rising more quickly than productivity in consumer goods production ? I recall Jim O'Connor telling me something like this once, and it seems to have parallels with various "long-wave" theories of capitalism's resilience, which focus on "revolutions in the production of the means of production" (from artisan-made steam engines, to machine-made steamships/locomotives/steel, to continuous processing-based petrochemicals, etc.) ...

John Gulick



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list