Re: super-profits

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Devine, James wrote:

> right.  But there's not simple continuity between the "liberal
> stage" of capitalism during the 19th century (under British
> hegemony) and the "neoliberal stage" of the current era (under the
> US thumb). There was a big retreat from globalization  during the
> late 19th century until the early 1930s. (This serious period of
> "interimperialist rivalry" leading to war and depression, as
> Bukharin suggested.) There was also the Cold War period, which set
> the stage for the neoliberal era, but also involved a lot of social
> democracy and the like.

Well, yeah. But during the "Golden Age," 1950-70, say, the CPI rose
an average of 2.9% a year in the U.S. In the neoliberal 1990s it rose
an average of...2.9% a year. And your average crisis theorist is
happy to tell you that profitability was higher in the first period
than the second. So, where are those superprofits?

Doug