Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- Part I The theory of social structures of accumulation
- Part II History, institutions, and macroeconomic analysis
- Part III Class, race, and gender
- 10 Shopfloor relations in the postwar capital–labor accord
- 11 Towards a broader vision: race, gender, and labor market segmentation in the social structure of accumulation framework
- Part IV The international dimension
- Afterword: New international institutions and renewed world economic expansion
- Comprehensive bibliography on the SSA approach
- Index
11 - Towards a broader vision: race, gender, and labor market segmentation in the social structure of accumulation framework
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- Part I The theory of social structures of accumulation
- Part II History, institutions, and macroeconomic analysis
- Part III Class, race, and gender
- 10 Shopfloor relations in the postwar capital–labor accord
- 11 Towards a broader vision: race, gender, and labor market segmentation in the social structure of accumulation framework
- Part IV The international dimension
- Afterword: New international institutions and renewed world economic expansion
- Comprehensive bibliography on the SSA approach
- Index
Summary
Introduction
The social structure of accumulation (SSA) framework has brought new clarity to analysis of labor markets. The integration of neo-Marxian class analysis with labor market segmentation (LMS) models marks a major contribution of the SSA approach, as developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Edwards, 1979; Weisskopf, 1981; Gordon et al., 1982; and Bowles et al., 1983). While Marxist and institutional labor market segmentation analysis had convincingly described labor markets (Doeringer and Piore, 1971; Edwards et al., 1975), this description lacked a theoretical and historical basis. The SSA framework, through its integration of long waves of economic activity with class-based economic crisis theory, provided that foundation.
This accomplishment is substantial, since LMS theory gives Marxist analysis important insights into economic and political outcomes. First, LMS has provided a coherent and empirically testable alternative approach to neoclassical human capital theory (Dickens and Lang, 1985; Reich, 1984). Second, LMS provides a consistent explanation for the absence of class politics and solidarity in the postwar period – particularly during the downswing, roughly 1968 to the present – as suggested by the title of the first full-scale work using the SSA framework, Segmented Work, Divided Workers (Gordon et al., 1982).
SSA theorists identify the development of labor markets and the labor process as the central focus of the model.
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- Information
- Social Structures of AccumulationThe Political Economy of Growth and Crisis, pp. 212 - 230Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994
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