In the neoliberal form of capitalism, economic expansion tends to be accompanied by rising profits and stagnant wages, creating a potential problem of overproduction. This obstacle to expansion has been overcome in the U.S. economy in the neoliberal era through rising household debt and the emergence of asset bubbles. However, certain trends in the U.S. economy suggest that the past methods of promoting expansion and averting severe crises in the neoliberal era may be becoming nonviable. JEL classification:E32, N12, E11
Bowles, S., D.M. Gordon, and T.E. Weisskopf.1984. Beyond the wasteland: A democratic alternative to economic decline. Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday .
2.
Economic report of the President. 2003. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
3.
Federal Reserve System.2006. Data from Web site http://www.federalreserve.gov/ (released June 8, 2006).
4.
Kotz, D.M.2003. Neoliberalism and the U.S. economic expansion of the 1990s . Monthly Review54 (11) (April): 15-33.
5.
---. 2002. The U.S. economy in the 1990s: A neoliberal success story? Unpublished longer version of Kotz (2003), available from the author on request at dmkotz@econs.umass.edu or at http://www.people.umass.edu/dmkotz/
6.
Li, M., F. Xiao, and A. Zhu.2005. Long waves and historical trends of capitalist development: Evidence from the long-term movement of the profit rate in the U.S., U.K., and Japan from the mid-nineteenth century to the present . Unpublished manuscript.
7.
Marx, K.1967. Capital, vol. I. New York: International Publishers.
8.
McCarthy, J., and R. Peach.2004. Are home prices the next "bubble"?Economic Policy Review10 (3) (December): 1-17.
9.
Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.2006. Data from Web site http://www.ofheo.gov/ (accessed May-September 2006).
10.
Sherman, H.J.1991. The business cycle: Growth and crisis under capitalism . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
11.
Sweezy, P.M.1942. The theory of capitalist development. New York: Monthly Review Press.
12.
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.2006. Data from Web site http://www.bea.gov/ (version updated July 28, 2006).
13.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.2006. Data from Web site http://www.bls.gov/ (accessed May-September 2006).
14.
Weisskopf, T.E.1979. Marxian crisis theory and the rate of profit in the postwar U.S. economy. Cambridge Journal of Economics3 (4) (December): 341-78.
15.
Wolff, E.N.2001. The recent rise in profits in the United States . Review of Radical Political Economics33 (3) (Summer): 314-24.
16.
Wright, E.O.1979. Class, crisis, and the state. London : Verso.
