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Charles, I have found long wave analysis very useful as a pedagogical device in teaching economic history, labour economics and political economy. It is a way of understanding how capitalism (since long waves are associated only with the various stages of capitalism) has evolved and how it responded to and resolved economic crises. It is for that reason that I particularly like the regulation school/social structure of accumulation approach because of its emphasis on institutional adaptation both on the side of capital and labour to class conflict engendered by crises of accumulation. It also focuses attention on not fighting the last war but rather on the current war -- i.e., the need to develop new tactics and new institutions of resistance and change to take account of the changing modus operandi of capital. For example, we can explain why craft unionism emerged out the manufactories that spread during the period of expansion following the railway period from the mid-19th century. But with the crisis of accumulation that accompanied competitive capitalism and the early forms of factory with the merger movement, 'scientific management', and industrial forms associated with the expansion from 1896-1918 and the subsequent two decades of intermittent stagnation/depression in the early 1920s and the sustatined depression of the '30s made the craft form of unions ineffectual paving the way for the emergence of industrial unionism (fordism) in the war and post-war boom ('the golden age' of capitalism) but this was cut off by the stagflation of the '70s which precipitated the virtual collapse of the traditional labour movement and a decline of national firms and markets leading to 'globalization' as capital's response. You might ask how that relates to the current situation? I would suggest that one possible answer is that the crisis of accumulation for capital has been met by the institutional evolution of global corporations producing a subsequent long wave expansion but in countries such as China and India leading to a new institutional form of capital that can not be challenged at the national level by unions as long as the state is controlled by capitalists and constrained by neoliberal trade rules. In short, while the issue of endogenuity or exogenuity is important as is the issue of periodicity (which are related), more important is the institutional transformation taking place and what that means for class warfare and/or labour resistance. I think the framework of the long wave provides us with tools for characterizing periods of institutional change and modes of exploitation which, in turn, gives us more insight into what is going on and suggests some of the means to counter the exploitation. I hope this makes some sense. Paul P Charles Brown wrote: I've asked this before, but are there any efforts to connect long wave observations to practice ? In other words, how might left economists, knowing the timing of long waves, suggest strategies and tactics for the world working class or regional working classes, as in South America, in the class struggle that use the information : "here comes a long wave in, surfs up , catch the wave workers and slide on past these capitalists ". Beachboy socialism.Charles |
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