The operation of the tendency toward a uniform rate of profit requires that high profits be made by continuously introducing productive innovations in advance of competitors.
George Reisman
George Reisman, Ph.D., is Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics and the author of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics. See his Amazon.com author's page for additional titles by him.
Visit his website capitalism.net and his blog atGeorgeReismansBlog.blogspot.com. Watch his YouTube videos and follow @GGReisman on Twitter.
The Profit Motive as an Agent of Innovation and Progress, Part 1
How the profit motive acts to make production steadily increase in a free market, and becomes an agent of continuous economic progress.
Capitalism’s Visible Hand: Profit Seeking Benefits Consumers in a Free Market
The real advocates of the consumers—their virtual agents—are businessmen seeking profit, not the leaders of groups trying to restrict the freedom of businessmen to earn profits.
Capitalism’s Visible Hand: Production for Profit is Production for Use
In total opposition to the misguided efforts of the Marxists to contrast production for profit with “production for use,” the fact is that production for profit is production for use.
Capitalism’s Visible Hand: How Profit Allocates Capital Across Industries
The uniformity-of-profit principle explains how the activities of all the separate business enterprises are harmoniously coordinated so that capital is not invested excessively in the production of some items while leaving the production of other items unprovided for.
Capitalism’s Visible Hand: The Uniformity of Profit Principle
The best way to begin to understand the functioning of the price system, and thus the full nature of the dependence of the division of labor on capitalism, is by understanding the following very simple and fundamental principle. Namely, there is a tendency in a free market toward the establishment of a uniform rate of profit on capital invested in all the different branches of industry.
The Intellectual Assault on Economic Activity and Capitalism, Part 2 of 2
Economics proves the existence of a harmony of the rational self-interests of all participants in the economic system—a harmony which permeates the institutions of private ownership of the means of production, economic inequality, and economic competition.
The Intellectual Assault on Economic Activity and Capitalism, Part 1 of 2
Capitalism is denounced as “an anarchy of production,” a chaos ruled by “exploiters,” “robber barons,” and “profiteers,” who “coldly,” “calculatingly,” “heartlessly,” and “greedily” consume the efforts and destroy the lives of the broad masses of average, innocent people.
Capitalism and the Economic History of the United States
The development of all the institutional features of capitalism is well illustrated by the economic history of the United States.
Capitalism and the Origin of Economic Institutions
Economic progress is the leading manifestation of yet another major institutional feature of capitalism: the harmony of the rational self-interests of all men, in which the success of each promotes the well-being of all.
Capitalism and Freedom Require Government
The existence of freedom under laissez-faire capitalism requires the existence of government.
The Philosophical Foundations of Capitalism
The greatest era of capitalist development—the last two centuries—has taken place under the ongoing cultural influence of the philosophy of the Enlightenment.
Capitalism: The Nature and Importance of Economics
Economics belongs alongside mathematics, natural science, history, philosophy, and the humanities as an integral part of a liberal education.
Capitalism: Economics, the Division of Labor, and the Survival of Material Civilization
What makes the science of economics necessary and important is the fact that while human life and well-being depend on the production of wealth, and the production of wealth depends on the division of labor, the division of labor does not exist or function automatically.
Socialism: Armed Robbery and Murder Based on Delusion and Profound Ignorance
Video of George Reisman’s TedX talk on socialism.
Capitalists’ Socialism Syndrome
At the present moment, we are witnessing a phenomenon that to many people appears bizarre and inexplicable: the phenomenon of wealthy capitalists supporting socialism/communism.
Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian
Nazi Germany was a socialist state, not a capitalist one and socialism, understood as an economic system based on government ownership of the means of production, positively requires a totalitarian dictatorship.
Ludwig von Mises: Defender of Capitalism
Ludwig Von Mises is important because his teachings are necessary to the preservation of capitalism and thus of civilization.
The Outlook for the Future of Capitalism (Part 10 of 10)
Let the advocates of capitalism proceed in the knowledge not only that socialism is dead, but also that what the world still needs to learn is why capitalism deserves to live.
A General Campaign at the Local Level for Laissez-Faire Capitalism (Part 9 of 10)
What would be required to restore New York to its former prosperity and greatness would be the combination of the elimination of public welfare, the abolition of rent controls, and the privatization of the city’s transportation system.
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