Stages of Capitalism and Social Structures of Accumulation

The Marxian theory of stages of capitalism emerged in two waves. The first wave, at the turn of the twentieth century, was rooted in the Marxist response to the recovery of capitalism from its late nineteenth-century crisis. Conversely, the second wave in the 1970s grew out of the faltering of the relatively unproblematic accumulation associated with the post–World War II capitalist order. One wave was concerned with the beginning of a period of long-run accumulation. The second wave was concerned with the advent of a downturn in capitalist accumulation and a period of crisis. These turning points marked the inauguration of a period of relatively unproblematic reproduction of capitalist social relations and, symmetrically, the beginning of a period of stagnation and crisis. This chapter examines the Marxist concept of a stage of capitalism and concludes with an application to the contemporary crisis at a global, regional and national level.