| As an important index of investment and capital accumulation,profit rate has always been the focus of economic theory research.Marx’s theory of equalization of profit rates is to reveal the law of how profit rate is transformed from surplus value rate and further averaged into average profit rate through competition.This theory not only involves how the industrial and commercial departments participate in the average rate of profit,but also describes the formation process of the average rate of profit,and puts forward the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit and the factors that hinder the fall.On the basis of revealing the source of the average profit,that is,the surplus value created by the production department,the theory further reveals the law that capitalists in different departments obtain the average profit by dividing and occupying the surplus value through competition,that is,the law that equal amount of capital obtains equal amount of profit.Therefore,the theory of equalization of profit rates is one of the most important theories in Marxist economics.It is the key and foundation of Marx’s value transformation theory,production price theory and profit theory.Marx’s theory of equalization of profit rates is only a theory to explain that the material production department obtains average profit through the equalization of profit rates,which can not adapt to and explain the economic phenomenon of non-material production and Realization in the current social and economic development,so it does not involve the financial sector and service industry,which account for a larger proportion in the economy.Therefore,scholars after Marx began to revise,supplement and develop the theory,trying to explain the changed economic reality.Later scholars’ supplement and development to the theory of equalization of profit rates,to a certain extent,enhanced the explanatory ability of this theory,and brought the service industry and financial industry into the scope of interpretation of this theory.However,there are still many deficiencies in their research,mainly for the research is not complete,not systematic,lack of systematic and complete theoretical framework,so it is not generalized.The specific performance is as follows: in the static research,there is a lack of theoretical upstream research,that is,there is no expansion of the concept of commodity and the connotation and scope of productive labor,there is no definition of prepaid capital and total profit,and there is a lack of research on how financial capital and service capital participate in the average profit rate;In the dynamic research,there is a lack of static research foundation,and the discussion on the influencing factors is not comprehensive and systematic enough.It only analyzes how a few influencing factors affect the change of profit rate and the reasons for the change;In empirical research,the concept category of profit rate related variables is inconsistent with Marx’s concept category,which leads to the inappropriate selection of indicators of numerator and denominator of profit rate.Nowadays,commodity production and capital accumulation are different from Marx’s era.The production of non-material goods has become an important form of value production.The service industry based on non-material production has gradually become the leading industry of economic development,and its contribution to the national economy has exceeded that of the traditional material production sector.With the rapid development of the financial sector,it is no longer satisfied with obtaining interest through loan business,but by carrying out more financial services business to directly transfer and occupy a part of the surplus value,so as to directly obtain profits,and grab excess profits through financial investment and trading.The phenomenon of financialization has been widespread.In this case,the capital of service industry and financial industry compete with the capital of industrial and commercial sector,which requires and can obtain the average profit,even higher than the average profit.Therefore,on the basis of previous studies,it is urgent to further develop the traditional theory of equalization of profit rates into a more complete and systematic general theory,that is,the general theory of equalization of profit rates covering the whole economic sector including the service industry and the financial industry,including the general static theory and the general dynamic theory,so as to explain the average profit rate formed under the new mode of value production and possession and its changes.This paper first summarizes and evaluates the relevant theories and arguments of equalization of profit rates,and then,on the basis of expanding the connotation and scope of commodity and productive labor,divides the productive and non productive sectors of the national economy by using normative analysis method,and defines the prepaid capital and total profit involved in equalization of profit rates: The definition of prepaid capital is based on the text interpretation of capital theory.It is considered that the prepaid capital participating in the equalization of profit rates is not equal to all the capital invested in advance,and the non functional capital,unused capital and capital not playing a role in the Department should be deducted;This paper defines the total profit from the perspective of the primary distribution and secondary distribution of surplus value,and considers that the total profit is the total average profit corresponding to the total prepaid capital,excluding the non production expenses directly deducted from the surplus value,including the net profit of each department and the unpaid interest,dividend.Finally,we use the method of Fine and Norfield to construct the general static theory of equalization of profit rates,in order to reflect how the capital of various sectors of the national economy participate in equalization of profit rates and join in the formation of general profit rate.According to the static model,the surplus value of each department after deducting the capital consumption is divided by the proportion of the prepaid capital of each department in the total social prepaid capital,and then the average profit is obtained.On the basis of Yuan Qingming’s digital model of equalization of profit rates considering capital transfer,this paper constructs a digital model of the formation process of equalization of profit rates covering all economic sectors by adding commercial,financial and service sectors,and further rises to a mathematical model of the formation process of equalization of profit rates by using mathematical methods.Then,by analyzing the factors that affect the change of average profit rate,on the basis of Ma Yan’s mathematical model about the change law of average profit rate,we add the proportion of production capital,labor value,labor complexity,labor productivity,capital turnover speed and other factors,and consider all economic sectors to explore the change law of average profit rate,and build the average profit rate change model Finally,the general dynamic theory of profit rate averaging is formed.In the part of empirical research,this paper uses the method of Shaikh and Tonak for reference,divides the production sector and non-production sector empirically,and then improves the previous estimation methods of prepaid capital and total profit,so as to establish the estimation formula of prepaid capital and total profit based on the category of political economy,so as to determine the estimation formula of average profit rate.Then,in the framework of political economy analysis of national accounts,based on the input-output table data to estimate China’s average profit rate from 1990 to 2018,and make an empirical analysis on the changes of average profit rate and its influencing factors.The results show that: from 1990 to 2018,the average profit rate of China’s economy showed a fluctuating downward trend.The main reason for the decline of profit rate is that the organic composition of capital increases more than the rate of surplus value,while the fluctuating decline of the proportion of productive capital is the secondary reason.It shows that the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit still holds in our country,but it shows the opposite trend in some stages of the fluctuation cycle.From a longer period of time,the law of profit rate decline is shown by the phenomenon of periodic decline or fluctuating decline.The research of this paper is the further supplement and development of previous studies,and also the systematization and integrity of the original theory,which develops the traditional theory into a more complete and systematic theory.The main innovations are as follows: first,to improve the theoretical basis and clarify the differences by expanding the connotation and scope of goods and productive labor,and clearly defining the prepaid capital and total profit;The second is to expand the theory of equalization of profit rates from the traditional industrial and commercial sector to the whole economic sector,and build a general static theoretical model of equalization of profit rates,and build a general dynamic theoretical model of equalization of profit rates on the basis of predecessors,including the theoretical model of formation process and change process;Third,based on the analysis framework of political economy,this paper uses Chinese economic data to verify the theory.Due to the limitation of time and ability,and the limitation of available data,there are still some deficiencies in this paper: first,the research on the non-equalization of profit rates is not enough,so the explanation of the phenomenon that the average profit can not be obtained in reality is not enough.Second,due to the lack of detailed transaction data,it is impossible to exclude the productive and non-productive activities that do not participate in the equalization of profit rates in the national economy,which affects the empirical verification of the theory.Third,it does not consider the existence of individual customers in the financial sector,as well as individual behavior of financial investment and transaction.Therefore,the total profit in the average rate of profit this paper only involves the deduction of surplus-value,not the deduction of value of labor power.These problems also need further study. |
