We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2009
The theory of the social structure of accumulation (SSA) has been advanced to explain in general the alternating periods of long-term boom and bust in advanced capitalist economies and in particular the current problems of US capitalism. A social structure of accumulation consists of the institutional environment affecting capital accumulation. Over a period of roughly fifty years, a given social structure of accumulation initially promotes capital accumulation, but ultimately winds up hindering that process.
The theoretical model of the social structure of accumulation posits that the financial system plays a central role in the institutional environment affecting capital accumulation. As argued by Gordon et al. (1982, pp. 23, 25):
Among the most important institutions [that make up the social structure of accumulation] are the system ensuring money and credit, the pattern of state involvement in the economy, and the structure of class struggle … it is not unreasonable to distinguish between those institutions that directly and demonstrably condition capital accumulation and those that touch it only tangentially. Thus, for example, the financial system bears a direct relation whereas the character of sports activity does not. (emphasis added)
Nonetheless, the specific analysis of the role of the financial system in the postwar social structure of accumulation in the United States has remained relatively undeveloped. This chapter is an attempt to contribute to that analysis.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
