Contemporary Capitalism and its Crises: Social Structure of Accumulation Theory for the 21st Century

This volume analyses contemporary capitalism and its crises based on a theory of capitalist evolution known as the social structure of accumulation (SSA) theory. It applies this theory to explain the severe financial and economic crisis that broke out in 2008 and the kind of changes required to resolve it. The editors and contributors make available new work within this school of thought on such issues as the rise and persistence of the “neoliberal,” or “free-market,” form of capitalism since 1980 and the growing globalization and financialization of the world economy. The collection includes analyses of the U.S. economy as well as that of several parts of the developing world.

Terrence McDonough is Professor of Economics at the School of Business and Economics, the National University of Ireland, Galway. He has also held teaching positions at Cornell University, Canisius College, Buffalo, and Dublin City University. Professor McDonough has authored articles in the areas of globalization, political economy, American and Irish economic history, public policy, the history of economic thought, and the philosophy of economics. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of Was Ireland a Colony? Economics, Politics, Ideology and Culture in the Irish Nineteenth Century (2005), Mind Your Own Business: Economics at Work (with David Jacobson and Keith Warnock, 2001), Uninhabited Ireland: Tara, the M3, and Public Spaces in Galway (with Lionel Pilkington and Aine Ni Leime, 2009), and Social Structures of Accumulation: The Political Economy of Growth and Crisis (with Michael Reich and David M. Kotz, Cambridge University Press, 1994). His current research interests include globalization, American and Irish economic history, and political economy.

Michael Reich is Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. He also co-chairs the Miguel Contreras Program in Labor Studies in the Office of the President of the University of California. Professor Reich has published numerous articles on labor market segmentation, racial inequality, the political economy of institutions in economic booms and crises, high-performance workplaces, living wages, and minimum wages. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of thirteen titles in labor, industrial relations, and economic studies, including Racial Inequality: A Political-Economic Analysis (1981), Segmented Work, Divided Workers: The Historical Transformation of Labor in the United States (1982), The Capitalist System (1986), the aforementioned Social Structures of Accumulation (1994), Work and Pay in the United States and Japan (1997), the two-volume Labor Market Segmentation and Labor Mobility (2008), and Labor in the Era of Globalization (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

David M. Kotz is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he has been on the faculty since 1978. He previously taught at the American University in Washington, DC. Professor Kotz's previous books include Russia's Path from Gorbachev to Putin (with Fred Weir, 2007), Revolution from Above: The Demise of the Soviet System (with Fred Weir, 1997), Bank Control of Large Corporations in the USA (1978), and the aforementioned title Social Structures of Accumulation: The Political Economy of Growth and Crisis (with Terrence McDonough and Michael Reich, 1994). He has also published in journals such as the Review of Radical Political Economics, the Monthly Review, and Science and Society. Professor Kotz is Vice President of the World Association for Political Economy, and his research interests include macroeconomics, institutional change in capitalist economies, and the economies of Russia and China.