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we have to assume some sort of "normal" capacity utilisation.
Since Professor Ciccone's utilisation,however, has to serve
the demon accumulation it cannot at the same time serve
as a basis for the determination of normal prices.
He tries to resolve this difficulty by assuming that the
normal prices are determined independently of actual
utilisation on the basis of a different value of utilisation
namely the utilisation which investors in new equipment
expect to realise with their new equipment in the future
( p.3 ff. ) Now this implies that the profit rate
calculated on the basis of this "normal" expected rate
of utilisation will be different from the profit rate
which is necessary to make the given pace of accumulation
possible. Professor Ciccone has a way out again: He
has two different profit rates, the normal profit rate,
and another one which he calls " profit realised per unit
of capital" (p.19). The distinction is quite legitimate
analytically. But do the managers live with such a
dichotomy? It would rather seem that they cannot have
much interest in calculating on the basis of a normal profit
rate normal prices which will never become reality
however long the run?
To my mind what all this amounts to is only the recognition
that there is not ever a long run equilibrium in an economy
with changing accumulation rates (and there is no gravity either).
It is possible to arrive at this conclusion also in other ways
but in any case I could hardly dissent.
On the other hand I see no convincing proof that accumulation
could not affect "normal profit rates". It might do so if
long run average of
a high ^utilisation would relax the aggressive competitive
spirits ( Joan Robinson did not use this argument, though ).