Er..no. Shaikh and Tonak tell a very different story and that is really the point. I really do suggest one goes back to the book for the references I gave earlier. See for example the graph on page 128 (it is very clear), or the table 5.8 that goes with it, or the 4 pages of "Conclusions" I recommended. It is pretty much the same story that Dumenil&Levy, Mosely, Mohun (see his 2005 CJE article for a modification of S&T) and the others using marxian versions of national accounts. One may or may not agree with the story these various authers tell ...but that is an entirely different question.
Their story is one of a secular decline since the end of WWII -- NOT a peak in 1966. The difference in data matters enormously when one then turns to *explaining* the data. For example - just one example - the marxian version is consistent with (but certainly doesn't clinch) a "tendancy for the rate of profit to fall" (TRPF) theory. Doug's calculation would largely refute such a theory...and might also refute several other alternative explanations.
Now before one cries "the fix is in" (I am thinking of the DH comment below), I should point out that other researchers who *reject* the TRPF such as Ed Wolff of NYU use a similar (i.e. marxian or classical) methodology, get similar profit rates as S&T -- BUT then have very different explanations (see Wolff's 2003 CJE article or his other earlier writings). Tom Weiskopf (1979), Tom Michl (1988) would be similar examples. Most people in this category find similar profit rates but not a rising rate of organic composition of capital which is required for the TRPF story.
>But the rate of profit seems to have risen a lot since S&T did their
>work (though maybe they could define that increase away with the
>proper adjustments).
Now, now. In defense against cynicism I should point out that these people have precisely pointed out the shaky rise in recent profit rates numerous times (see for example Dumenil&Levy: their recent book or their 2004 paper in the RRPE on U.S. profit rates; the several macro papers of Shaikh at Levy (sometimes co-authored with Wynn Goodley a Cambridge economist or with Papadimitriou a post-Keynsian; or Simon Mohun 2005CJE)
> Yet the share of "unproductive" labor has
>undoubtedly increased. As I recall, Shaikh does not want to believe
>the profit decline was caused by labor getting a bit of an edge in
>the class struggle in the 60s and 70s (the explanation that makes
>sense to me), so he's looking for a non-squeeze explanation of the
>profit decline. But if the profit rate has increased - and everything
>you can see in the U.S. economy says it has - then this would be
>support for the class struggle theory of the profit rate, since labor
>has been smashed and capital runs free.
Again, I recommend reading their writings on this subject. Dumenil&Levy, for example, argue in their recent book that things did happen "deep" in the capital stock during the post war period to cause a long run decline in the rate of profit (classic falling rate of profit)... BUT they go on to argue that this lead to the stagflation years which in turn lead to the decline of labor/class struggle to which Doug refers. Does one need to see just one thing going on at a time and during all periods?
After all the $1 million question is what will happen next? And for that I think one DOES need to delve into the National Accounts from more than just a neo-classical perspective.
Paul