Introduction

It may not initially be obvious to all readers of this work that there is any primary causal significance to be attached to the rate of profits in relation to economic theory in general or to the problems of distribution theory and theoretical long-run growth models specifically. The direction of causality can be shown to run from the effect of the rate of profits on distribution and, in turn, the effect of distribution on the analysis of long-run growth. From this view, therefore, until the question of profits is settled, there can be no determinate theory of distribution. Thus the key variable that has been chosen for analysis in this study is the dynamic property of profits, the rate of profits.