It's a mistake to generalize too much from individual experience. The amount of normal profits actually received can go to zero, for _individual_ businesses. (Prices can be low relative to costs, while it is possible that an individual capitalist makes zero normal profits because the surplus-value has been transfered to land-owners and financiers (or tax collectors).) But for capitalism as a whole, there are positive normal profits for the _average_ owners of real and financial capital -- unless the mostly-rejected "falling rate of profit" scenario happens, As long as the aggregate average profit rate is positive, the normal rate is too.
When normal profits = 0 for an individual business, the owner has to decide whether to continue operations simply for subsistence or to get out of the business all together. Most choose the latter, as in US agriculture. That reduces supply in their markets, allowing accounting profits to rise toward the "normal" level. Of course, the forces driving profits below normal can attack again. yes, capital can vanish. But I don't expect capitalism to go away in the near future. at least not this year. On Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 8:23 PM, Sabri Oncu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Jim: > >> "normal" profits (the simple reward for owning capital in a capitalist >> society) don't go to zero. > > Can you elaborate on this? > > My late grandfather used to own a huge farm: as a kid younger than a > teenager in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it used to take me about > four hours to walk from one extreme of the farm to the other, during > which I had to cross a few creeks and a small forest, but eventually > the "profits" went down to zero, if not below that, and the farm was > sold! Today, there is nothing left from that farm to the survivors of > the family! > > It is not just profits that may go below zero! > > Even the capital may vanish, does it not? > > Best, > Sabri > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
