Technology, distribution and the rate of profit in the US economy: understanding the current crisis
梳理马克思主义学者关于资本主义结构性危机的争论，聚焦利润率问题，分析美国战后非金融企业部门的利润率趋势及其技术、分配驱动因素，并提出对当前危机的假设。
This paper offers a synoptic account of the state of the debate among Marxist scholars regarding the current structural crisis of capitalism, identifies two broad streams within the literature dealing, in turn, with aggregate demand and profitability problems, and proceeds to concentrate on an analysis of issues surrounding the profitability problem in two steps. First, evidence on profitability trends for the non-farm non-financial corporate business, the non-financial corporate business and the corporate business sectors in post-war USA are summarised. A broad range of profit rate measures are covered and data from both the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (NIPA and Fixed Assets Tables) and the Federal Reserve (Flow of Funds Account) are used. Second, the underlying drivers of profitability, in terms of technology and distribution, are investigated. The profitability analysis is used to offer some hypotheses about the current structural crisis. Copyright , Oxford University Press.