Introduction

The social structure of accumulation (SSA) framework is based in a tradition of theorizing which attempts to explain long movements in capitalist history. As such the historical test of the theory's accuracy and usefulness must ultimately be found in the explanation of long movements over time. Nevertheless, much of the historical work done within the SSA framework examines recent history, seeking to explain the demise of the postwar SSA in the 1970s and after. This chapter seeks to expand the historical literature of the SSA framework by examining the construction of SSAs over the course of American history. This study also has the advantage of addressing the more theoretical question of how highly integrated SSAs are constructed in a period of economic crisis and heightened social conflict.

The lack of a convincing account of SSA construction is one of the main theoretical weaknesses remaining in the SSA framework. Ernest Mandel (1980), on the one hand, and Gordon, Edwards, and Reich (1982), on the other, take sharply differing positions on this question. Ernest Mandel, perhaps the best-known Marxist theorist of long waves, seeks to explain these waves through examining fluctuations in the average rate of profit. Mandel argues that the rate of profit tends to decline over time, owing to the tendency of the organic composition of capital to rise.