From the citation above:
Agriculture, after all, is rural and innovations tend to disproportionately emerge in cities and diffuse slowly out.
I am not sure I agree with that statement as it applies to agriculture. Sure, innovations in manufacturing may tend to disproportionately emerge in in cities for the simple reason that it is in cites were manufacturing tends to concentrate. Especially large scale manufacturing that makes heavy use of a division of labor. For the same reason, I think it is reasonable to argue that innovations in agriculture emerge in more rural areas because that is where agriculture is located. Of course, there is the added complication of research institutes, which might be more concentrated in urban areas. Still, if such institutes concentrate their research on agriculture, then is it really that difficult for innovations developed in such institutes to “diffuse slowly out”?
Earlier in the article, the author writes:
One major candidate for the explanation is the stagnation in agricultural R&D that has prevailed from roughly 1980 to 2007.
…a constant level of R&D effort tends to result in smaller and smaller gains in innovation. So if that’s true, the roughly stagnant R&D would be expected to result in a slower and slower rate of technological progress.
So, don’t we at least need to compare the R&D effort in other sectors with the R&D effort in agriculture?
I can believe that R&D in electronics and computers outpaced that of R&D in agriculture in relatively recent time frames.
The author maybe makes a stronger point when he writes:
As discussed at great length here, a constant level of R&D effort tends to result in smaller and smaller gains in innovation.
Others on this forum write of a “declining rate of profit.” I have resisted that notion because I think it ignores what neo-Marxists call the monopoly sector. That is, sectors dominated by a small number of corporations. Maybe “monopoly and oligopoly sectors” might be a more accurately descriptive term. Orthodox Marxists tend to describe a declining rate of profit where firms competing with each other drive down profits as rising capital and (perhaps) labor expenses tend to squeeze profits even as the marketplace keeps prices relatively low. Oligopolies tend to have a greater control over prices. Increased capital and labor costs can thus more easily be passed along to consumers.
Still, I can see where a declining yield from relatively stable levels of R&D can slow productivity growth. I suppose that can also have an effect on the rate of profit. Still, if a greater concentration of economic power results in fewer and fewer “capitalists,” then such capitalists might actually personally experience increasing profits in a growing economy. Moreover, if the economy does fail to grow or actually shrinks, then such powerful interests may be in a better position to defend their wealth at the expense of more vulnerable sectors of the population. When such trends result in increased resentment from such sectors, then a legitimacy crisis may emerge.