Re: Perelman on Brenner

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

I wrote: 
> > This means that profit booms are most likely
> > to be based on increased indebtedness.

Sabri writes:
> This is how I see it, too. The profit rate increases
> are not so much as a result of wage squeezes anymore.
> That is a thing of the past. As Michael keeps saying,
> and I agree, we are now in the age of high fixed costs
> and low marginal costs.

if we're talking about wage squeezes on profits -- or, what we're seeing nowadays, wage stagnation encouraging profits -- it's not marginal costs but average costs that count. We're not talking about individual firm's decision-making but instead about the economic conditions facing aggregates (though both levels are important in the end).

The fluctuation of average wages relative to average productivity (determining the profit share and the rate of surplus-value) is important. But it's not just production but also realization. That's what I was referring to when I wrote of profit booms being based on increased indebtedness. Wage stagnation implies high profit production -- but only if profit realization is high. The latter can only happen (given wage stagnation) given increased indebtedness.

Jim D.