Tot no hi cabia.
What does the rate of utilisation measure? It is, at its simplest, the difference between actual production and what could be produced by operating plant at its most efficient. Given the difficulty to track future demand, the inability to coordinate on what should be invested and the competitive displacement of technically obsolete plant, it is normally under one: still, it is a good indicator of the gap between demand and potential supply and thus, the need for new investments. Unsurprisingly, for all talk about the unavailability of credit or the high (labour) costs/low rates of profits of firms, the fall in utilisation gives a rather good explanation for the fall in accumulation rates in Spain (industry data, from Encuesta de Coyuntura Industrial).
A fall in the rate of growth of demand typically translates, in the short-run, into a fall in utilisation -which, all else equal, lowers the effective rate of profit. This has led to the somewhat casual conflation of falling utilisation with falling rates of profit in the long-run (thus Brennerites and Kaleckians). This seems doubtful, as rates of utilisation fail to display much of a trend and hence do not track the rate of profit, which is hardly stagnant even when corrected by the former (data for Spain: non-wage net surplus over fixed and circulating private capital, minus dwellings).
Nor can we resort to more traditional explanations for falling rates of profit: technological determinisms are vitiated by circularity, whereas “profit-squeeze” theory (which relies upon a strengthened working-class) does not quite fit the history of the last decades. I suspect the new salaried existence of capitalists (as top cadres) and the combination of floating exchange and free capital flows are theoretical tracks to follow, but at this stage (and while I gather more data), it is only speculation.
Retalls militants 