Every quarter when the flow of funds accounts come out, I compute a profit rate for nonfinancial corps using the pre- and after-tax profits figures from the national income accounts and dividing them by the value of the tangible capital stock from the FoF (a pretty standard technique). It shows a sharp decline in profitability from the mid-1960s into the early 1980s, a strong rise back to close to Golden Age levels into the late 1990s, a sharp decline from 1997-2002, a strong rise into 2005, and a significant decline since. Marxist economists who adjust the bourgeois numbers by stripping out such "unproductive" fields as retail generally adjust away the 1982-97 rise. Therefore FROP continues FROPping. I say the bourgeois offensive was quite successful in restoring corp profitability. The adjusters don't agree. I'm sure Rakesh can say more.
Doug
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CB: Marx's law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (_Capital_, Vol. III) includes the tendency of the rate of profit to fall due to rising organic composition of capital _and_ the counteracting influences by which the capitalists counter-act the tendency to fall. So, Marx's law predicts the result of falling and rising rate of profit that you find empirically. ( See Rudy Fichtenbaum's "Did Marx Have a Theory of the Business Cycle ? " in _Nature, Society and Thought_ vol. 1 no. 2; circa 1988 ; http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/1998-August/011116.html
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2001m03.4/msg00028.htm )
There is a mistaken notion "out there" that Marx's law predicts a continuous and permanent falling rate of profit.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch14.htm
Part III The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall Ch. 13: The Law as Such Ch. 14: Counteracting Influences Ch. 15: Exposition of the Internal Contradictions of the Law
Counteracting Influences I. INCREASING INTENSITY OF EXPLOITATION II. DEPRESSION OF WAGES BELOW THE VALUE OF LABOUR-POWER III. CHEAPENING OF ELEMENTS OF CONSTANT CAPITAL IV. RELATIVE OVER-POPULATION V. FOREIGN TRADE VI. THE INCREASE OF STOCK CAPITAL