Abstract
Carried away by the logic of accumulation and enlarged production, national capitalisms searched throughout the world for space in which to expand, confronting one another with increasing severity. National reactions became sharper, and with the spirit of conquest and revenge, nationalist feelings became more pronounced. The world war resolved nothing, very much to the contrary. The need for expansion on a world scale endured, although the previously existing system of international payments had been destroyed. And during the 1920s this world which had been split apart experienced the coexistence of both prosperity and crisis, and after 1929 was dragged into a new huge crisis and then another huge war.
Our century, hardly passed, will have seen two radically dissimilar eras succeed one another with no transition between them other than the war. Our contemporaries must try to imagine the years of the past: a time of stability, economies, prudence; a society of acquired rights, traditional politics, trustworthy businesses; a regime of fixed incomes, secure salaries, tightly calculated pensions; an era of the “3 percent,” old tools, and the standard dowry. Competition aided by technics chased away this wisdom and killed this quietness.… The war has enlarged the natural course of things into a torrent and has transformed the range of needs. In order to satisfy these needs as they are—diverse, imperious, and changing—the activity of men becomes multiplied and hurried.… Every day of machinery and the division of labor force the retreat of eclecticism and illusion.
—Charles de Gaulle 1
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Notes
Studs Terkel, Working (New York: Pantheon, 1972), pp. 221, 225.
Cepremap, “Approches de l’inflation: l’exemple français,” 1977, mimeo, p. 106a;
J. H. Lorenzi, O. Pastré, and J. Toledano, La Crise du XXesiè cle (Paris: Economica, 1980), p. 205. Economie prospective internationale 2 (April 1980); “La spécificité du modè le allemand,” Statistiques et Etudes financiè res, 1980, p. 9.
Colin Clark’s work (The Conditions of Economic Progress, 1940, 2nd ed. 1951,)
Jean Fourastié, Le Grand Espoir du XXesiè cle(Paris: PUF, 1980);
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959);
Ludwig Erhard, Prosperity Through Competition(New York: Praeger, 1958).
R. F. Harrod had opened the way in 1939 in the Economic Journal with “An Essay in Dynamic Theory,” then in 1948, Toward a Dynamic Economy; William Fellner, Trends and Cycles in Economic Activity (New York: Holt Rinehart, 1956);
E. D. Domar, Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1957);
N. Kaldor, “A Model of Economic Growth,” Economic Journal (December 1957).
The neoclassical perspective was articulated by R. M. Solow in articles in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1957, and Growth Theory: an Exposition, 1970.
W. A. Lewis, The Theory of Economic Growth (London: Allan & Unwin, 1955);
W. W. Rostow, The Process of Economic Growth (New York: Norton, 1953), and The Stages of Economic Growth (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1960).
Sources and indicators used include: Loiseau, Mazier, and Winter, cited in R. Boyer and J. Mistral, Accumulation, Inflation, Crises (Paris: PUF, 1978), p. 241 (gross excess of exploitation/gross capital stocks at the beginning of a period);
Andre Gunder Frank (gross profit rates); Economie prospective internationale (January 1980), pp. 78–79 (gross marginal rates of the manufacturing sector); Economie prospective internationale 2 (April 1980), pp. 74, 76 (profitability before taxation of fixed capital; non-financial companies);
Cepremap, “Approches de l’inflation: l’exemple français,” 1977, mimeo, p. 364 (gross economic profitability).
Terkel, Working, p. 265. See also Andre Gorz, ed., The Division of Labor (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1976).
See Bernard Rosier, Croissance et Crises capitalistes (Paris: PUF, 1975);
Jean-Marie Chevalier, La Pauvreté aux É tats-Unis (Paris: PUF, 1971);
Maurice Parodi, L’ É conomie et la Société française de 1945–1970 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1971).
Charles A. Michalet, Le Capitalisme mondial (Paris: PUF, 1976);
Christian Palloix, L’ Internationalisation du capital (Paris: Maspéro, 1973).
See Chevalier, La Pauvreté; Pierre Dockes, L’ Internationale du capital (Paris: PUF, 1975);
P. Allard, M. Beaud, B. Bellon, A. M. Lévy, S. Liénart, Dictionnaire des groupes industriels et financiers en France (Paris: Ed. Seuil, 1978);
B. Bellon, Le Pouvoir financier et l’ Industrie en France (Paris: Ed. Seuil, 1980).
Cited in Harry Magdoff, The Age of Imperialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969), p. 104.
Beaud et al., Lire le Capitalisme; Jean-Marie Chevalier, Le Nouvel Enjeu pétrolier (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1973).
See also Samir Amin, Accumulation on a World Scale (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974);
Samir Amin, A. Faire, M. Hussein, and G. Massiah, La Crise de l’ impérialisme (Paris: Ed. Minuit, 1975);
Y. Fitt, A. Fahri, J.-P. Vigier, La Crise de l’impérialisme et la Troisiè me Guerre mondiale (Paris: Maspéro, 1976).
Michael Beaud, Socialisme à l’épreuvre du l’histoire (Paris: Ed. Seuil, 1980).
See Andre Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1962)
See Andre Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1962) and Lumpenbourgeoisie; Lumpen- development (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972); Samir Amin, Unequal Development (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1976) and Acumulation on a World Scale.
J. W. Forrester, a professor at MIT, cited by D. Pignon and J. Querzola, in Critique de la division du travail (Paris: Ed. Seuil, 1973), p. 158.
See Kostos Vergopoulos, Le Capitalisme difforme (Paris: Anthropos, 1974), for the working of distorted capitalism.
Figures from Survey of Current Business, in Serge Latouche, Critique de l’impérialisme (Paris: Anthropos, 1979), p. 209.
From Samir Amin, Class and Nation, Historically and in the Current Crisis(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980), p. 151.
S. Rubak (La Classe ouvriè re est en expansion permanente [Paris: Spartacus, 1972]) had established concurring figures for the whole of the world (in millions of workers):
See the notion of “protonations” advanced by Jean Ziegler, in Main basse sur l’Afrique (Paris: Ed. Seuil, 1978).
World Bank, Report on World Development, 1979, p. 188.
See Jean Ziegler, Une Suisse au-dessus de tout soupçon (Paris: Ed. Seuil, 1976).
In 1978 West Germany, France, and Sweden designated around 3.3 percent of their GNP to military expenditures, while for other countries the figures were Britain, 4.7 percent, United States, 5 percent, China, 10 percent, USSR, 11–14 percent, Saudi Arabia, 15 percent (J. Isnard and M. Tatu, in Le Monde, February 19, 1980
P. Lefoumier, in L’ Expansion, March 21, 1980).
P. Fabre, in L’ É conomiste du Tiers Monde, December 1979,
P. Lefoumier, in L’ Expansion, March 21, 1980.
M. K. Tolba, cited in Le Monde, June 8–9, 1980.
Report of the World Food Council, presented to UNESCO (Le Monde, July 18, 1980).
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Beaud, M. (1981). The Great Upheaval (1914–15). In: A History of Capitalism 1500–1980. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17336-5_6
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