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.