[lbo-talk] An Orgy of Speculation?

Peter Fay peterrfay at gmail.com
Sat Mar 5 10:38:56 PST 2011


Not to rain on this parade, but did profitability really rise 1982-97?

Andrew Kliman argues nominal rates rose then, but profit rates adjusted to money prices, etc. show a continual decline(hope he doesn't mind me quoting his rough draft - "Value and Crisis: Bichler & Nitzan versus Marx"):

"But why did the rate of profit fall? Well, one factor that can cause it to change is a change in income distribution between profits and compensation of employees. Another is a change in the relationship between the money and labor-time measures of value. For example, when money prices rise in relationship to the amount of labor that is needed to reproduce commodities, this will raise the nominal (money) rate of profit. To ascertain the impact of these factors, I computed an adjusted rate of profit that holds them constant, thereby eliminating them as sources of variation in the rate of profit."

The result is a fairly steady decline from 1947 to 2007, with no rise in 1982-97. Not sure what to make of "change in income distribution...", but money prices seems a reasonable adjustment, no?

-- Peter Fay http://theclearview.wordpress.com

On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 9:44 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


>
> On Mar 4, 2011, at 9:23 PM, michael perelman wrote:
>
> > Low profits did cause the shift to
> > financialization
>
> How?
>
> Profitability rose from 1982 to 1997, as financialization proceeded apace.
> Financialization assisted the rise in profitability, by forcing
> restructuring on the productive sector.
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>



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