Theory of the regulation

The theory of the regulation is, with the economy of conventions, one of the two principal approaches hétérodoxes of the economy in France. It took its rise in the middle of the years 1970 around work of Michel Aglietta, Bernard Billaudot, Robert Boyer, Benjamin Coriat, Alain Lipietz.

Its program consists of a operationnalisation for the economic analysis of the philosophical reading of Marx by the Althusser traditional ism, and an actuation of this Structuralisme by a reintroduction of a figure of the agent allowing the restitution of the creative dimension of the conflict practices. The regulationnists insist thus at the beginning on the idea that the social reports/ratios contain an intrinsic dynamics, under the terms of their contradictory dimension first. This ambivalence is source of an uncertainty, directly integrated into the Marxist framework by the resumption in account of the commercial report/ratio of separation and the institutionalization of the subject which results from it.

To instigate the heritage of Althusser by making regulation a nonsystematic reproduction, thus consists, on the basis of the primacy of the crisis on the reproduction, to provide an endogenous treatment of the methods of management of the contradictions contained in the reports/ratios which support the form in force of the accumulation of the capital (the mode of accumulation ). This total management, is the existence of a mode of regulation , is stabilized by various degrees of codings of the reports/ratios in a compatible, complementary and hierarchical plurality institutional forms and devices.

Theoretical bases

The theory of the regulation rests on the analysis of the five " forms institutionnelles" , characteristic of an social organization:

form of competition (what can include the competition between employees, which determines the wages then)
form of the currency (currency, monetary policy, etc)
form of the State
form of the wage report/ratio
form of insertion in the worldwide economy

The characteristics of a given form of capitalism are determined by these institutional forms.

The whole of the mechanisms which make it possible these five forms a priori independent to form system is called " mode of régulation". The history of capitalism saw following one another various modes of regulation:

with the mode of regulation to old was substituted, at the time of the Industrial revolution, a mode of competing regulation, where any adjustment is done on the basis of of the market and competition
a mode of regulation hybrid during the inter-war period
a mode of regulation fordist or monopolistic, during the Thirty glorious ones: this system rests in particular on the transposition in rise of wages of the very important productivity gains of the period.

The question of knowing if the emergent countries entered this phase today deserves to be posed. For this reason, Alain Lipietz distinguishes the " Taylorism périphérique" , of the " fordism périphérique" : whereas, in the second case, a development process is truly committed, it is not the case with the peripheral Taylorism, which does not imply necessarily social progresses.

a mode of regulation not clearly definite since the beginning of the " crisis contemporaine"

As for the mechanisms which allow the continuation of the economic growth (the system is not, of course, fixed), they form the " mode of accumulation". One can, coarsely, distinguish two from them:

the mode of accumulation extensive, founded on the increase in the stock of factor of production
the mode of accumulation intensive, founded on important profits of Productivity

One can thus summarize the succession of the modes of regulation and the modes of accumulation as follows:

XIX°siècle : extensive accumulation, founded on a massive mobilization of capital and labor, in competing regulation
Inter-war period: intensive accumulation without consumption of mass (absence of clearly definite regulation)
Thirty glorious: intensive accumulation with consumption of mass, in regulation fordist
Last quarter of the XX° - Beginning of the XXI° century: “Extensive Accumulation with consumption of mass”, according to Robert Boyer (it is debatable, because the productivity gains are become again high in the years 1990, in particular in the United States, because of the NTIC). The regulation remains to be defined. The existence of a mode of regulation based on the prevalence of finance is, for the moment, more than debatable.

On these bases, the theory of the regulation built a typology of the crises which gives an account of various disarrangements produced in an endogenous way as consequence of the institutional configuration - in accordance with one of its initial objectives which was to include/understand the rupture observed at the end of the Sixties in the evolution of the principal economic aggregates:

the exogenic crises are the fact of an event external with the system: they can be very perturbing, but do not endanger the mode of regulation, and even less the mode of accumulation. The new traditional ones (or economists of the school of rational anticipations) think that all the crises are exogenic with the direction regulationnist of the term.
endogenous crises: corresponding more or less to the period of depression of the cycle (Cycle Juglar), they are the expression even mode of regulation, which " purifie" the system by the crisis. These crises indeed make it possible to reabsorb various imbalances which accumulated during the phase of expansion, without major deterioration of the institutional forms. When an endogenous crisis occurs, the contemporaries think that it is about a serious crisis. They are mistaken: these crises are indissociable operation of capitalism.
the crisis of the mode of regulation: incompetent to avoid a spiral depressionnist, the state and the fitting of the institutional forms must be modified. The best example is that of the crisis of 1929 when the play of competition did not allow the return of the phase of expansion.
the crisis of the mode of accumulation: being able to be pulled by nonthe resolution of a crisis of the mode of regulation, the crisis of the mode of accumulation means that it is impossible to continue the long-term growth without major upheaval of the institutional forms. There still, the crisis of 1929 is the best example: the turbid period of the inter-war period marks the passage of a mode of accumulation characterized by a mass production without consumption of mass to a mode incorporating all at the same time production and consumption of mass. To illustrate this idea, one can carry out a second analysis which Galbraith of the crisis of 29 makes: he explains why, although the productivity gains in the United States were of 43% between 1919 and 1929, the wages stagnated… The extraordinary deformation of the division of the added-value to the profit of the capital could only lead to a crisis of overproduction.
the crisis of the mode of development: it is the collapse of the system.

Thus, " each company has the crises of its structure" , as Ernest Labrousse (School of Annals) said it. It is by the crises that capitalism perdure and adapts. It is " an actuation of the history through the technical innovation and institutionnelle" (R. Boyer).

Internal bonds

External bonds

New economy and new regulation
Master Economie of the institutions (u-paris10.fr)
Association Seeks & Régulation (web.upmf-grenoble.fr)
Revue Regulation. Capitalism, Institutions, Capacities
Article in line Robert Boyer, institutions in the theory of the regulation (www.cepremap.cnrs.fr)
Article in line Alain Lipietz, Of the althusserism to the theory of the regulation (lipietz.net)
Article in line Benjamin Coriat, the theory of the regulation. Perspective origins, specifities and (multitudes.samizdat.net)

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