regulation theory

A loose-knit body of empirically oriented, political-economic theory that originated in France in the 1970s, as part of the general effort then being made to overcome the limitations of Marxism's economic reductionism . According to what is sometimes referred to as the Parisian School, the concepts necessary to overcome this reductionism are the following: ‘regime of accumulation’, which refers to the organization of consumption as well as that of production; ‘mode of growth’, which relates the regime of accumulation to the international division of labour ; and ‘mode of regulation’, which refers to the national and international, institutional, and ideological framework which facilitates the reproduction of particular regimes of accumulation and modes of growth. The best-known claim made by the regulationists is that the use of these concepts enables one to distinguish two successive modes of regulation in the history of twentieth-century capitalism- fordism and post-fordism.

FIGURE 8: An example of a regression analysis

Representative works in English include, A Theory of Capitalist Regulation: The U.S. Experience(1976, trans. 1979);, Prisoners of the American Dream (1986);, Segmented Work, Divided Workers: The Historical Transformation of Labour in the United States (1982); and, Mirages and Miracles (1987).