The Social Structure of Accumulation model puts human agency into long waves.
On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 10:37:25PM -0800, paul phillips wrote:
> 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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--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
