Riccardo Bellofiore's comment is attached at the end.
Last summer, I have read some works by French Marxists who belong
to "Regulation School." Below I'll give the references. My impression of
these writers is that they do very serious work in Marxian tradition. The
posting by Riccardo Bellofiore is very informative, but critical. I do
not know how many would agree with Riccardo's critical points.
Fred Moseley, who edited "Limits of Regulation," a special issue
of INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, volume 18, no. 2 (Summer
1988) has an excellent introduction essay. He says that Michel Aglietta,
Robert Boyer and Alain Lipietz are representative of the Paris-based
"Regulation School." On the other hand, Gerard de Bernis and others
represent a second stream of regulation theory based in Grenoble.
Here are two synopses from Fred's introduction:
"Alain Lipietz's essay is an excellent representative of the
Paris-based 'regulation school' . . . The chief conclusion of Lipietz's
analysis is that the main cause of the decline of the rate of profit
during this period was the slowdown in productivity growth which began in
the mid-1960s. This productivity slowdown caused both a decline in the
share of profit in total income and a decline in the output-capital
ratio, both of which led in turn to lthe decline of the rate of profit.
Lipietz's explanation of the decline in the rate of profit is thus
similar to that presented by Wolff (1986)."
"Gerard de Bernis represents a second stream of regulation
theory, based in Grenoble. In general, the theorists of this group
adhere more rigorously to lthe basic concepts of Marx's theory (such as
the labor theory of value and social capital). De Bernis's article,
like Lipietz's, begins with a summary of theoretical principles, which
are then applied to the current crisis. . . . De Bernis's approach are
what he calls the 'two laws of profit' (both based on Marx): the
tendency of the rate of profit to fall and the tendency toward the
equalization of profit rates across industries and firms."
Hugo, you seem to be skeptical of the work by "Regulation
School." Do you know any particularwork by them which lead you to such
conclusion?
Alan (Freeman), you seem to be close to this school
geographically/theoretically (am I wrong?). Could you give us your
assessment of them and their work? Your comment will be very much
appreciated.
Doug, I believe you have radio program. Why don't you invite
Michel Aglietta to your program and ask him about Regulation School and
his position now. Then, we would have first hand information rather than
having second guess.
REFERENCES:
Aglietta, Michel. 1979. A Theory of Capitalist Regulation: The US
Experience. London: New Left Books.
De Bernis, Gerard Destanne. 1988. Proposition for Analysis of the
Crisis. in Fred Moseley (ed.). Limits of Regulation 18(2): 44-67.
__________ . 1990. On a Marxian Theory of Regulation. Monthly Review.
(January): 28-37.
Dumenil, Gerard, Mark Glick and Jose Rangel. 1985. The Tendency of The
Rate of Profit to Fall in the United States. Part II: The Pattern of
Irreversibility. Contemporary Marxism. (Fall): 138-152.
Dumenil, Gerard and Dominique Levy. 1993. The Economics of The Profit
Rate: Competition, Crises and Historical Tendencies in Capitalism.
Brookfield, Vermont: Edward Elgar Publishing Company.
Lipetz, Alain. 1986. Behind the Crisis: The Exhaustion of a Regime of
Accumulation. A 'Regulation School' Perspective on Some French Empirical
Works. Review of Radical Political Economics. 18(1&2): 13-32.
__________. 1988. Accumulation, Crises, and Ways Out: Some Methodological
Reflections on the Concept of 'Regulation.' In Fred Moseley (ed.) Limits
of Regulation.
__________. 1989. The Debt Problem, European Integration
and the New Phase of World Crisis. New Left Review 178(Nov-Dec): 37-50.
Fikret Ceyhun
Dept. of Economics e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Univ. of North Dakota voice: (701)777-3348 office
University Station, Box 8369 (701)772-5135 home
Grand Forks, ND 58202 fax: (701)777-5099
On Fri, 1 Dec 1995, Riccardo Bellofiore wrote:
>
> As always within Marxians, if you have three guys you have four opinions.
> Thus I try to join in with still another perspective on Aglietta.
>
> Aglietta wrote a very important thesis (a troisieme cicle thesis,
> which is similar though not identical to the Ph.D.) in *1974* - the thesis
> can be read at the Bibliotheque Cujas, the library of law and economics of
> the Universite' de Paris I. The collective discussion on the thesis helped
> to define the Paris version of the regulation school (there is also a
> Grenoble branch around G. Destanne de Bernis, with their own terminology
> and their more orthodox, communist-party like, ways of seeing the
> different phases of capitalist development). Aglietta's thesis two years
> later, in *1976*, became the book on the US (publisher: Calmann-Levy,
> Paris), eventually translated by New Left Books in 1979. Note, however,
> that the 1974 version is much more centered on the labor process than the
> published, 1976, version, which stresses the role of exchange in Marxian
> value theory though still paying attention to the labor process. In 1977
> the CEPREMAP published in a collective book an analysis of inflation in
> France which, I think, was at the heart of the contemporary analytical
> regulationist efforts of those years by Lipietz and Boyer-Mistral. In
> these years Aglietta and Lipietz were, as Jerry remarked, *very*
> marxist-oriented, while Boyer was, as it is still, more of a
> Keynesian-Kaldorian in Marxist disguise.
>
> All changed with the early '80s. I think that among the factors producing
> a shift there were theoretical reasons and practical urgencies. The
> theoretical reasons were linked with the ever-increasing role that money,
> a social presupposition of capital privately produced, was playing in
> Aglietta's thought. He was stressing more and more the link among
> capitalism, disequilibrium and uncertainty, and then the political
> necessity of a central, social institution which impedes that the
> 'natural' instability of capitalism as a monetary economy degenerates in a
> full-blown crisis. At the same time, Aglietta said that Marx's failure to
> deduce money from the commodity at the beginning of Capital was a sign
> that one has to choose among the theory of value and a monetary approach,
> and he choosed the latter (for my partr, I refute the alternative).
>
> This went hand-in-hand with the monetary developments in Europe and
> the political situation in France - and also with the professional
> orientation of Aglietta, who at first was employed in a 'public' center of
> research (think-thank?), the CEPII, and later taught mainly on
> International Monetary topics. In Europe, the EMS was built, with Germany
> in command: Aglietta and others wanted the others European partners -
> mainly France 8-) - to be able to limit Germany's power. How to do that?
> Going towards a monetary union - better if decided at one stroke, without
> a long, difficult, transition. In this EMU Bundesbank would have to share
> its power. This monetary 'centralization' would have produced, together
> with the ongoing dynamics of the free market on which there should not be
> too much interventions: (i) the need of fiscal redistributive policies
> among nations (i.e. the reemergence of the need of an intervenionist
> state), and, (ii) a forced homogeneization of labor market (i.e. the
> precondition for a renewed trade-unionism at the European level).
>
> In France, Mitterand went to power, and after a brief Keynesian
> episode was compelled to the policy of the 'franc fort', which was not so
> distant from where regulationists a la Aglietta were going. BTW, most of
> the regulationists in the '80s became either grands commis for the State
> (i.e. they went inside the socialist institutions ruling the country) or
> counsellors for the socialist government. Thus, Hugo is not wrong: the
> transition was already there in the '80s, though I would not characterize
> this people as proponents of the Welfare State in a too straightforward
> manner. Lipietz was isolated, and was shifting more and more to a Green
> position, though always claiming continuity with his Marxian roots. Boyer
> was more and more approaching an institutionalist and taxonomical way of
> theorising, at an ever increasing speed. Workers' struggles in France, as
> in Italy, were declining. To be at the center of the stage intellectuals
> had to do something better than to remain in the Marxian camp.
>
> For those interested and able to read French, there is a second
> edition in French of the book on the USA by Aglietta (also by
> Calmann-Levy), with a new introduction, in 1982, and in the same year a
> very important book written with Andre' Orlean on the "Violence of Money"
> (La violence de la monnaies, PUF, Paris): both testify of the shift. In
> the following years Aglietta has extensively written, but mostly on
> international monetary issues. His last book, in French, is Macroeconomie
> monetaire, La Decouverte, Paris 1995.
>
> This post has been, I realize, rather harsh and critical - but I
> hope also informative. Thus, I want to be clear on the fact that
> Aglietta's work in the '80s and '90s is, in my eyes, of the highest
> quality, and of the highest interest also for those working on Marxian
> political economy.
>
> riccardo
>
> ==================================================================
> Riccardo Bellofiore e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Department of Economics Tel: (39) -35- 277505 (direct)
> University of Bergamo (39) -35- 277501 (dept.)
> Piazza Rosate, 2 (39) -11- 5819619 (home)
> I-24129 Bergamo Fax: (39) -35- 249975
> Italy
> ==================================================================
>
>
