Productive Labour and Profitability in Australia: A Marxian Assessment, 1963–2023

This article examines Australia’s rate of profit and its interplay with other macroeconomic indicators from the early 1960s to the mid-2020s. Compared with previous Marxian studies, it applies a broader range of approaches to calculating the rate of profit, assesses more indicators, and explicitly employs the concept of productive labour in analysis. The calculated profit rates demonstrate an overall upward trend and indicate a cyclic pattern. The main driver of the long-term trend has been the rise of the rate of surplus value. The divergence from previous studies highlights the importance of temporal, social, and geographical specificities when it comes to profitability analysis. Over the past six decades, total national weekly worked hours have increased only because of the growth of the labour force, as the average weekly worked hours per worker has consistently declined. Over the second half of the twentieth century, the share of productive labour in total employment fell sharply but has remained almost constant over the past two decades. Despite a partial recovery in the 2000s, the share of productive capital in the national capital stock has also declined. The cost of using capital, represented by the share of depreciation in GDP, has increased consistently over the studied period.