Social Structures of Accumulation: A Marxist Comparison of Capitalisms?

Abstract

They proceed to elaborate on this theme with a number of useful concepts and several diagrammatic tools that provide helpful cognitive frameworks. They conclude with the hypothesis that the numerous national, subnational and supranational socio-economic institutions are interrelated in a manner that they label "nestedness." The main features of nestedness are (p. 470): National institutions are dependent upon both international forces and subnational forces. Institutions at all levels interact with one another in a mutually causal manner. No single institution has the capability of regulating or managing the entire system. After further examination of the meaning of nestedness, the authors close with speculation about the future form of global capitalism. They consider four scenarios and conclude that the most likely is their nestedness vision in which, "(S)ubnational regimes, sectoral, national and international logics are intertwined--with none being dominant--in a two-sided type of causality" (p. 475). In their concluding paragraph they unabashedly identify themselves as "neo-Polanyians" and assert that, "The future is very much open, but a perspective on long-term historical trends suggests that taming the market has always been more rewarding over the long term than myopically following it" (p. 477). This book is an excellent point of departure for most of the topics it covers. Not only does it frame each issue exceptionally well, but it also provides an extensive reading list on each topic. Of necessity, there are some omissions. The discussion of SSPs, for example, does not include coverage of the somewhat parallel literature in economics dealing with so-called "Social Structures of Accumulation" (Kotz, McDonough, and Reich, 1994). But this only opens the door for future work. Readers of this review are encouraged to pursue these opportunities and submit their manuscripts to the JSE.