The rate of surplus value in the postwar US economy: a response to Moseley's critique

Abstract

Fred Moseley's article (pp. 57-79) represents a very useful contribution to the literature on Marxian macroeconomic approaches to the study of the contemporary US economy. He has carefully and systematically compiled evidence on the time pattern of variables corresponding to several key Marxian ratios, and he has used this evidence in support of the proposition that the postwar decline in the (before-tax) share of profits in the US business sector is attributable primarily to a rise in the ratio of unproductive to productive labour. In the process of developing his own argument, Moseley criticises both the measure ment of the profit share and the explanation of its decline (in terms of the 'exhaustion of the reserve army of labour') that I presented in an earlier contribution to this journal (Weisskopf, 1979). While I find Moseley's work very interesting, I believe that some of his criticism of my article is misplaced. Furthermore, I have serious reservations about Moseley's own analysis; therefore I find his conclusions suggestive, but by no means definitive. In the following pages I shall first raise a few relatively minor points of concern and then turn to some issues of greater import.1