It is well known that Sraffa analyzed fixed capital as a 'joint product' along with regular products, such that in each period a given machine (together with other material and labor inputs) produces a regular product plus a one-period-older machine of the same type. What is perhaps less well...

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...