Modern Social Structure of Accumulation (SSA) Theory: An Integral Innovation in Heterodox Economics

Abstract

This article considers the state of the art of modern social structure of accumulation (SSA) theory. Spearheaded by New School radical economist David Gordon and his closest collaborators from the late 1970s until Gordon’s untimely death in the mid-1990s, the SSA theory has since been extended, reconceptualised, and elaborated upon by subsequent generations of scholar-activists. The consolidation and eventual structural crisis of global neoliberal capitalism has served as a particular rallying point, provoking intense reflection and debate within this Marxist-regulationist school – its radical direction setting it apart from both the modern regulation theory (RT) and varieties of capitalism (VoC) schools, as well as opening up the possibility of a reconciliation with world-systems theory (WST).