f 
9 
not easily be possible without a fall in the profit rate. 
Indeed if new methods like uuUnaallon or new products -Mre 
iafepoduoed 
ear at first to involve a greater 
capital-coefficient than the usual one, then the application 
may often be delayed until the engineers have developped 
a sufficiently large scale version of the method to keep 
the capital-coefficient down to the usual level of the 
industry in question. This is not to say that the capital- 
coefficient is everywhere the same, but in fact in manu- 
it is mostly belo\* one, except in basic iron and steel. 
Railways, public utilities and agriculture have capital- 
output ratios considerably above unity. " 
The discussion of the relation of capital-coefficient and 
profit rate in Chapter III is obviously related to the 
discussion of the declining profit rate and the increasing 
organic composition of capital in the work of Karl Marx. 
Here also the objection against the historical reality of 
an increasing organic composition can be made, and here 
also one is tempted to re-interpret: The (anticipated) con 
sequence of a declining profit rate should rule out from 
the very beginning any methods which increase the organic 
^R.N. Grosse, The Structure of Capital, in Studies in the 
Structure of the American Economy. Ed.W* Leontief 
New-XO'