Endless Accumulation, Limits to Growth, and the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall

If you have found this article useful and you think it is important that researchers across the world have access, please consider donating, to ensure that this valuable collection remains Open Access.

The World Review of Political Economy is published by Pluto Journals, an Open Access publisher. This means that everyone has free and unlimited access to the full-text of all articles from our international collection of social science journals. Furthermore Pluto Journals authors don’t pay article processing charges (APCs).

scite_

Version and Review History

Preprint

Reviewed by IVAYLO ANGELOV

World Review of Political Economy

Volume 7, Issue 2

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

Endless Accumulation, Limits to Growth, and the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall

research-article

Author(s): Minqi Li

Publication date (Print): Summer 2016

Journal: World Review of Political Economy

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: profit rate, accumulation, crisis, the US economy, the Chinese economy

Bookmark

Abstract

This article proposes a simple new model that helps to analyze the long-term movement of the profit rate. The article applies the new model to the United States and China, the world's two largest economies, to illustrate how the new model may help analyze the global capitalist crisis in the 21st century. In the new model, the long-term movement of the profit rate depends on the long-term average economic growth rate and the ratio of accumulation. As the capitalist economy stagnates and ecological sustainability imposes constraints on future economic growth, capitalism may have exhausted its historical capacity to check the tendency for the rate of profit to fall.

Content

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.13169

Journal ID (publisher-id): worlrevipoliecon

Title: World Review of Political Economy

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Print): 2042891X

ISSN (Electronic): 20428928

Publication date (Print): Summer 2016

Volume: 7

Issue: 2

Pages: 162-181

Article

Publisher ID: worlrevipoliecon.7.2.0162

DOI: 10.13169/worlrevipoliecon.7.2.0162

SO-VID: 11477b7c-a740-4dc8-9da9-2e44766c7178

License:

All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

References

BEA (US Bureau of Economic Analysis). 2015a. “Fixed Assets Tables.” Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_FA.cfm.
BEA (US Bureau of Economic Analysis). 2015b. “International Transactions, International Services, and International Investment Position Tables: International Transactions.” Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_ita.cfm.
BEA (US Bureau of Economic Analysis). 2015c. “International Transactions, International Services, and International Investment Position Tables: Net International Investment Position.” Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_ita.cfm.
BEA (US Bureau of Economic Analysis). 2015d. “The National Income and Product Account Historical Tables.” Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_nipa.cfm.
Carter, B. S., S. S. Gartner, M. R. Haines, A. L. Olmstead, R. Sutch, and G. Wright, eds. 2006. Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present . New York: Cambridge University Press.
Devine, J. N. 1987. “An Introduction to Radical Theories of Economic Crises.” In The Imperiled Economy: Macroeconomics from a Left Perspective , Book 1, edited by R. Cherry and T. R. Michl, 19–32. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Dumenil, G., and D. Levy. 1993. The Economics of the Profit Rate: Competition, Crises and Historical Tendencies in Capitalism . Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar.
Federal Reserve (The US Federal Reserve Statistical Release). 2015. “Financial Accounts of the United States, Historical Data.” Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/data.htm.
Foster, J. B. 2011. “Capitalism and Degrowth: An Impossibility Theorem.” Monthly Review 62 (8): 26–33.
Foster, J. B., and M. D. Yates. 2014. “Piketty and the Crisis of Neoclassical Economics.” Monthly Review 66 (6): 1–24.
Giovannoni, O. 2014. “What Do We Know about the Labor Share and the Profit Share? Part III: Measures and Structural Factors.” Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, working paper, no. 805, May. Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_803.pdf.
Gordon, R. 2012. “Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds.” NBER working paper, no. 18315. Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.nber.org/papers/w18315.
Gordon, R. 2014a. “A New Method of Estimating Potential Real GDP Growth: Implications for the Labor Market and the Debt/GDP Ratio.” NBER working paper, no. 20423. Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.nber.org/papers/w20423.
Gordon, R. 2014b. “US Economic Growth Is Over: The Short Run Meets the Long Run.” In Think Tank 20 Report: Growth, Convergence, and Income Distribution—The Road from the Brisbane G-20 Summit . Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.brookings.edu/∼/media/Research/Files/Interactives/2014/thinktank20/chapters/tt20-united-states-economic-growth-gordon.pdf?la=en.
Hart-Landsberg, M., and P. Burkett. 2005. China and Socialism: Market Reforms and Class Struggle . New York: Monthly Review Press.
Maddison, A. 2010. “Statistics on World Population, GDP, and Per Capita GDP, 1–2008 AD.” Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.ggdc.net/MADDISON/oriindex.htm.
Magdoff, F., and J. B. Foster. 2010. “What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Environment.” Monthly Review 61 (10): 1–30.
Marx, K. (1894) 1967. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , vol. III. The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole . New York: International Publishers.
NBS (National Bureau of Statistics, People's Republic of China). 2015 and earlier years. China Statistical Yearbook . Various Issues. Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/.
Piketty, T. 2015. Capital in the Twenty-First Century . Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
UN (United Nations). 2012. World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision . United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Accessed May 31, 2015. http://esa.un.org/wpp/.
Wallerstein, I. 1998. Utopistics, or, Historical Choices of the Twenty-First Century . New York: The New Press.
World Bank. 2015. World Development Indicators . Accessed May 31, 2015. http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] BEA (US Bureau of Economic Analysis). 2015a. “Fixed Assets Tables.” Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_FA.cfm.

[2] BEA (US Bureau of Economic Analysis). 2015b. “International Transactions, International Services, and International Investment Position Tables: International Transactions.” Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_ita.cfm.

[3] BEA (US Bureau of Economic Analysis). 2015c. “International Transactions, International Services, and International Investment Position Tables: Net International Investment Position.” Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_ita.cfm.

[4] BEA (US Bureau of Economic Analysis). 2015d. “The National Income and Product Account Historical Tables.” Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_nipa.cfm.

[5] Carter, B. S., S. S. Gartner, M. R. Haines, A. L. Olmstead, R. Sutch, and G. Wright, eds. 2006. Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present . New York: Cambridge University Press.

[6] Devine, J. N. 1987. “An Introduction to Radical Theories of Economic Crises.” In The Imperiled Economy: Macroeconomics from a Left Perspective , Book 1, edited by R. Cherry and T. R. Michl, 19–32. New York: Monthly Review Press.

[7] Dumenil, G., and D. Levy. 1993. The Economics of the Profit Rate: Competition, Crises and Historical Tendencies in Capitalism . Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar.

[8] Federal Reserve (The US Federal Reserve Statistical Release). 2015. “Financial Accounts of the United States, Historical Data.” Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/data.htm.

[9] Foster, J. B. 2011. “Capitalism and Degrowth: An Impossibility Theorem.” Monthly Review 62 (8): 26–33.

[10] Foster, J. B., and M. D. Yates. 2014. “Piketty and the Crisis of Neoclassical Economics.” Monthly Review 66 (6): 1–24.

[11] Giovannoni, O. 2014. “What Do We Know about the Labor Share and the Profit Share? Part III: Measures and Structural Factors.” Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, working paper, no. 805, May. Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_803.pdf.

[12] Gordon, R. 2012. “Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds.” NBER working paper, no. 18315. Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.nber.org/papers/w18315.

[13] Gordon, R. 2014a. “A New Method of Estimating Potential Real GDP Growth: Implications for the Labor Market and the Debt/GDP Ratio.” NBER working paper, no. 20423. Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.nber.org/papers/w20423.

[14] Gordon, R. 2014b. “US Economic Growth Is Over: The Short Run Meets the Long Run.” In Think Tank 20 Report: Growth, Convergence, and Income Distribution—The Road from the Brisbane G-20 Summit . Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.brookings.edu/∼/media/Research/Files/Interactives/2014/thinktank20/chapters/tt20-united-states-economic-growth-gordon.pdf?la=en.

[15] Hart-Landsberg, M., and P. Burkett. 2005. China and Socialism: Market Reforms and Class Struggle . New York: Monthly Review Press.

[16] Maddison, A. 2010. “Statistics on World Population, GDP, and Per Capita GDP, 1–2008 AD.” Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.ggdc.net/MADDISON/oriindex.htm.

[17] Magdoff, F., and J. B. Foster. 2010. “What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Environment.” Monthly Review 61 (10): 1–30.

[18] Marx, K. (1894) 1967. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , vol. III. The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole . New York: International Publishers.

[19] NBS (National Bureau of Statistics, People's Republic of China). 2015 and earlier years. China Statistical Yearbook . Various Issues. Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/.

[20] Piketty, T. 2015. Capital in the Twenty-First Century . Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

[21] UN (United Nations). 2012. World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision . United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Accessed May 31, 2015. http://esa.un.org/wpp/.

[22] Wallerstein, I. 1998. Utopistics, or, Historical Choices of the Twenty-First Century . New York: The New Press.

[23] World Bank. 2015. World Development Indicators . Accessed May 31, 2015. http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators.

World Review of Political Economy

Endless Accumulation, Limits to Growth, and the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall

Journal

Article

History

Categories

Comment on this article