[PEN-L:4880] Re: profit-rate equalization -Reply

[Patrick Bond <PBOND@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On this matter of contradictory tendencies, there is a broad theory
of uneven development (see, eg, Neil Smith's 1984/1990 Blackwell book
of the same name) which incorporates the problem within Marxist
theory. There's a debate, I recall, about whether you locate this -
and disproportionality more generally - in `differences of
aptitude... fertility between animals or soils, innumerable accidents
of human life or the cycle of nature' as Mandel does (in Marxist
Economic Theory). Or, whether geographical equalization and
differentiation of capital - which is what we're essentially getting
at, I think - traces only so far back to the division of labor that
developed with capitalism. (For Mandel, it's the basis for
establishing the roots of savings and credit, so an important
historical problem.)

Whichever, my own point would be that such uneven development (over
sectors or space or even scale) is exacerbated during those periods -
like the 1980s `Deal Decade' - when financial capital is ascendant. I
wonder whether Doug's citation underestimates the problem, by failing
to distinguish between profits derived from financial as opposed to
productive activities (I am guessing, based on the Brookings source).
Intuitively, I would guess those profit differentials would be even
more divergent if such a breakdown was available. Doug, this
distinction is in your Wall Street book, no doubt?