Search

This paper argues that the fundamental cause of the current economic crisis in the U.S. economy was a significant long-term decline in the rate of profit from the 1950s to the 1970s. Capitalists responded to this profitability crisis by attempting to restore their rate of profit by a variety of strategies, including: wages and benefit cuts, inflation, “speed-up” on the job, and globalization. These strategies have largely restored the rate of profit, but have resulted in stagnant real wages for workers for decades. As a result, household indebtedness has increased to unprecedented levels and must be substantially reduced in order to make possible a sustainable recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article focuses on an interesting and important concept of inequality and, it would seem, one indicated by conventional thinking on this subject. But in view of the aspects just mentioned, exclusive preoccupation with inequality in this sense might lead to a rather one-sided view of what is really of concerns the people. The second kind of inequality would diverge from the first as a result of direct taxes and subsidies and also certain other factors, particularly monopoly profits and exploitation. To put the matter in somewhat different terms, what is in question here seems essentially to be a valuation problem-a-problem of how to value, for purposes of measuring inequality, the different commodities entering into "real" income. The author talks about the procedure of valuing the different commodities in accord with their market prices or, assuming a relatively effective market, their relative utilities. The author refers in his paper to the large question of the effect of taxation and other measures for the equalization of income or incentives.

The article focuses on the issue of business ethics, in context of the business enterprises in the U.S. The author also attempts to put the subject of business ethics in perspective by tracing the historical roots of some of the greater U.S. preoccupations with the ethics of business. The contemporary re-emergence of three issues are focused on; the tension between ethics and profits, the conflict between private gain and the public good, and the contrast between the results of capitalism and the intentions of businessmen. The author concludes that the contemporary revival of interest in business ethics can be viewed as part of an ongoing moral dialogue with deep secular and religious roots. It is noted that public scrutiny of the moral character of business decisions has played an essential part in the historical evolution of capitalism.