[PEN-L:1859] SSA & Regulation Theory

["Eric Nilsson" <enilsson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Re Terry McDonough's message on Regulation/SSA theory.

I agree that there are lots of problems with how SSA theory and
Regulation theory go about constructing themselves.

First, I believe they often mistake the contingent for the
fundamental. Terry McDonough writes, about
>the need for security of return for longterm investment creates
> the need for relatively stable institutions of an economic, political
> and ideological/cultural nature.
This claim is often made in the SSA literature.

But I think that the desire for stability is NOT fundamental to all
capitalist regimes but was (once) the goal of a particular set of
capitalist economies (postwar). I think it might be a mistake to
assume that capitalists always desire stability of any sort or that
there is a tendency toward stability within institutions.

Second, I believe that some SSA/Regulation theorists impose on
their analysis a major theoretical assertion (that they fail to
justify) that has major detrimental political consequences.
This is that claim that institutional change is most rapid
during a "crisis" and, so, it is during a crisis that political
energies must be marshalled to reconstruct institutions in
a way that favor workers. This leads some to claim,
as do the authors of "Segmented Work/Divided Workers",
that the possibilities for change occurs "once in a generation."

However, it might be that institutional change occurs ALL THE
TIME and that we don't need to wait for the crisis to act. I think
that the difference is that institutional changes just aren't noticed
much outside the crisis as they occur more slowly and with
less conflict. But they are no less important.

I developed the above ideas (and more) in--plug coming--
"Capitalists' Institutional Agenda, Class Conflict Spillover,
and the Last Instance" (Review of Radical Political Economics,
Dec 1994). I believe this article is still the only one that
formally models endogenous institutional change within
the SSA/Regulation framework.

Eric

..
Eric Nilsson
Department of Economics
California State University
San Bernardino, CA 92407
enilsson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx