Productive Activity, Accumulation, and Growth in Postwar Japan and the United States

Abstract

This empirical study shows that the more rapid postwar economic growth in Japan in comparison to the United States was influenced neither by the higher level nor faster growth of its rate of surplus value, but by less surplus value having been absorbed by unproductive expenditures. Also the slowdown of Japan's growth and the precipitous decline in its profitability after 1970 was not the result of a profit-squeeze due to a falling rate of surplus value, since the Japanese rate of surplus value (like that of the United States) rose over the period