a) Define social structures of accumulation and list the four important relation
ID: 1100886 • Letter: A
Question
a) Define social structures of accumulation and list the four important relationships the "rules of the game" influence and are influenced by.
b) Use all four stages of American capitalism to describe how the capital-labor relationship has evolved under different social structures of accumulation.
c) Give a real life example of how the command element of the three-dimensional approach to economics exists in capital-labor relationships in the current transnational phase of American capitalism (hint: be specific, think of a specific company or corporation and their labor practices).
Explanation / Answer
a> Social Structure of Accumulation (SSA) theory seeks to explain the long waves--
averaging about fifty or sixty years for a complete cycle--that have characterized capitalist economic growth, and the distinct stages of capitalism that have marked each long upswing. Thus in the United States, the upswing early in the twentieth century was marked by industrial consolidation, mass production, and the introduction of "scientific management"; the one following World War II was marked by the growth of the state, U.S. leadership in the world economy, limited competition, and tacit "accords" between capital and labor on the one hand, and between capital and the citizenry on the other. This second SSA is among those analyzed in greater detail below as a means of supporting and clarifying the theoretical argument presented here. The focus of SSA theory is on the institutional arrangements that help to sustain long wave upswings. Institutions can be thought of in a narrow sense as organizations (like universities or the World Bank), or in a broader sense as made up of customs, habits and expectations. In this sense, they are typically country or culture-specific.i
A further division can be made within the broader sense, which might refer to something rather specific like collective
bargaining on the one hand, or more broadly to the entire system of labor relations that exists within a country
The Rules of the Game is noted for its use of deep focus so that events going on in the background are as important as those in the foreground. In a 1954 interview with Jacques Rivette and Fran
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