The profit rate — real competition's regulating variable
The reading heterodox lens
For Shaikh, the economy-wide profit rate — corporate profits over the net capital stock — is the regulating variable of turbulent competition. Its long-run path, together with the rising share of unproductive labor and the structural shift from goods to services, is the deep backdrop against which wages and prices move.
Interpretation is labeled as interpretation. The underlying series are official BLS/BEA data (or, where noted, an explicitly constructed classification) and are downloadable below each chart and in the Explorer.