Brendan, I must that you and Doug have done a good job of getting me to re-look at Marx without all the French theory I learned first in my head in doing so. Thank you. I am pimping–to use a horrible capitalist term–your videos and blog and Doug’s podcast lately.
I’m having a bit of trouble following through the notion that Harvey et al. do not believe that the rate of profit is falling. In his “Enigma of Capital” he mentions, for example, that “profits began to fall” after 1990 (pg. 29), and that this led to wage reduction and more investment in speculative markets. He has repeated similar notions elsewhere. It is true that later he pretty much says that the tendency of the rate of profit to fall as the main explanation of crisis is rendered “more than a little moot” by a series of factors (pg. 94), so my question is: what is the difference between a fall in the rate of profit as theorised by Marx and a fall of profits that forces capitalists to reduce wages and look for exotic and unstable profitable markets?
Brendan, I must that you and Doug have done a good job of getting me to re-look at Marx without all the French theory I learned first in my head in doing so. Thank you. I am pimping–to use a horrible capitalist term–your videos and blog and Doug’s podcast lately.
Awesome. Great to hear!
I’m having a bit of trouble following through the notion that Harvey et al. do not believe that the rate of profit is falling. In his “Enigma of Capital” he mentions, for example, that “profits began to fall” after 1990 (pg. 29), and that this led to wage reduction and more investment in speculative markets. He has repeated similar notions elsewhere. It is true that later he pretty much says that the tendency of the rate of profit to fall as the main explanation of crisis is rendered “more than a little moot” by a series of factors (pg. 94), so my question is: what is the difference between a fall in the rate of profit as theorised by Marx and a fall of profits that forces capitalists to reduce wages and look for exotic and unstable profitable markets?