Applying SSA Analysis to the Arab World

The theory of social structures of accumulation (SSA) was developed to explain long swings of alternating expansion and stagnation in Western capitalist economies. The post-World War II SSA led by the United States entailed the projection of U.S. military power overseas, the allocation of U.S. foreign aid to allies and protégés, and the investment of U.S. surplus capital abroad. U.S. hegemony provided assurance of energy and raw material supplies and new arenas for the global spread of capitalist production, as well as the growth of markets for the United States and, increasingly, Western European and Japanese exports. Because many areas of the Arab region were rich in easily extractable sources of energy and conveniently located near Europe, controlling the region became an integral part of the U.S. economic and political strategy as it replaced shrinking British and French imperial power.

The importance of SSA analysis is double-barreled for understanding economies of the Arab World. First, the establishment and evolution of this “post-World War II SSA” led by the United States, and its evolving contradictions, constituted the international context within which the Arab territories attained political independence as new “nations” and undertook “modern” economic development. Second, the SSA conceptual apparatus can be used to examine the economic achievements and internal contradictions of the Arab countries and the institutions facilitating or impeding accumulation in each period of their postwar history.