Long Waves of Capitalist Development: A Marxist Interpretation

by Ernest Mandel

In this revised and expanded edition of Long Waves of Capitalist Development , Ernest Mandel seeks to explain the underlying determinants of the booms and slumps of the trade cycle. Mandel first establishes that there have indeed been twenty- to twenty-five-year-long waves of capitalist expansion and contraction—and that these have persisted in the period since World War II. He then assembles evidence to show that while broad tendencies in the rate of profit have been decisive in triggering downturns, the ingredients necessary for a new upswing are, by contrast, generally political and extra-economic in character. He thereby demonstrates the falsity of neo-liberal doctrines, according to which the free market will itself generate a new formula for balanced and sustainable expansion.

Long Waves of Capitalist Development  not only offers a penetrating analysis of the ills that have afflicted contemporary capitalist economies but also surveys, and takes forward, one of the classical debates of modern economic history.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published November 28, 1980

About the author

Ernest Ezra Mandel was a German born Belgian-Jewish Marxian economist and a Trotskyist activist and theorist. He fought in the underground resistance against the Nazis during the occupation of Belgium and he became a member of the Fourth International during his youth in Antwerp. Mandel is considered to be populariser of marxism.

Reviews

[Liu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting book on a topic that's mostly fallen to the wayside over the last few decades. Mandel argues that capitalism tends to produce alternating expansionary and depressive long waves of 20-25 years. The kinds of short-term booms and busts that concern real business-cycle theory will still happen within these long waves, but the kind of long wave they are occurring within will affect their magnitudes. Mandel demonstrates that long waves can influence a whole host of factors like the rhythms of class struggle, technological innovation, and new organizations of the labor process.

This edition of the book was written in 1995 and saw 1968 as the beginning of an ongoing long depressive wave. Today in 2021, that depressive wave still has not ended, long outlasting the expected duration of 20-25 years. The neoliberal period has been marked by persistent economic stagnation, a phenomenon that Robert Brenner has referred to as "the long downturn." This doesn't refute Mandel's claims. Mandel argues that only the transition from expansionary wave to depressive wave is endogenously determined by capitalist laws of motion. By contrast, the upturn from depressive to expansionary waves is exogenously determined by extra-economic forces. For neoliberal stagnation to get its jump start, the endogenous mechanisms of capitalism won't be enough. Some other factor will have to come along to do that work. As a whole, Mandel avoids making overly deterministic claims, always citing the importance of subjective factors that lead to historical outcomes. All this said, the past few decades really makes one question the feasibility or usefulness of Mandel's thesis. If we've gone over a half-century without the transition to a new expansionary wave, then can the theory be called correct at all? What's even the point of putting an expected duration on depressive waves if they're ended by exogenous factors?

These critical points aside, this book is well-worth reading. I'm not sure if the long waves thesis is correct, but Mandel's lucid explanation of the causal interaction between the rate of profit, expansionary and depressive waves, class struggle, technological innovation, and changes in the organization of the labor process were illuminating and applicable regardless of the validity of the general long waves thesis.

[Göksal Caner Malatya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kapitalist ekonominin kriz ve büyüme dönemlerini "Kondratieff döngüleri" (uzun dalgalar) üzerinden açıklayan, Mandel'in en önemli ve orijinal teorik katkılarından biridir. Sadece teknolojik yeniliklerin değil, sınıf mücadelesinin, işçi sınıfının yenilgi veya zaferlerinin ve emperyalist savaşların da bu uzun dalgaların yönünü belirlediğini Marksist bir temelde kanıtlar. Kapitalizmin tarihsel sınırlarına yaklaştığını ve geç kapitalizm döneminin yarattığı kronik durgunluğu anlamak için müthiş bir analiz aracıdır. Ekonomiyi siyasetten ve sınıf mücadelesinden koparan mekanik anlayışlara karşı, canlı bir diyalektik iktisat okumasıdır.

[Nate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everybody knows about the ordinary business cycle, but very few leftists are aware that there is also a larger cycle of alternating "long waves" of growth and lesser growth in the advanced capitalist countries.

These long waves last approximately 20 to 25 years. The capitalist system inherently leads to crisis, and system shocks are required to introduce a new long wave of growth. A new long wave of growth occurs when there is a significant 1)increase in the rate of profit and 2) expansion of the market. The contradictions of capitalism ordinarily do not allow for both requirements to be met simultaneously, hence the need for system shocks.

For instance, the 1873-93 long wave of lesser growth was ended by imperialism, the 1914-1940 long wave by World War Two, the 1968-90 long wave by the fall of the Soviet Union and greater penetration of capital into China.

The severity of the current recession indicates that we are standing at the beginning of a new long wave of lesser growth, which implies growing crises and an intensification of the class struggle to come.

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mandel's short synthesis of the ways in which politico-social, economic and technological developments develop in dialectical relation to each other and pattern the long term tendencies for expansion and contraction of capitalist profit retains nearly all of its poignancy almost three decades after its initial publication.

Mandel situates the contemporary prospects for continued capitalist stability in the context of long term historical trends in inter-state rivalry, the secular tendency for the rate of profit to fall, the balance of class forces internationally and technical developments of productive forces. Responding to much of the scholarship put forward by the Worlds Systems theorist such as Wallerstein and fellow travels like Braudel, Mandel seeks to explicate the degree to which empirical cycles in capitalist economics recur on time scales beyond the typical 'business cycle' and their inter-relation to developments on all levels of capitalist society.

The most remarkable aspect of Mandel's analysis is its capacity to sketch out the long term trajectories of capitalist societies from the slump in profits of the 60s and 70s to the new labor and political regimes ushered in by neoliberalism followed by the emergence of new democrats/new labour and the popular resistance to their austerity politics. Most astonishing of all is the prognosis for (then) future trends. Mandel seems to accurately predict the increased globalization following trade deals like NAFTA, the response of the alter-globalization movement, the uprisings of Occupy then the contraction of these very same forces of global integration with the reemergence of the nation state as the dominant formation in global capitalist relations.

[Bülent Bilgili · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ana akım medyanın yönlendirmeleriyle fikir oluşturanlar için sevgili "komplo teorileri" kapsamına girebilecek düşündürücü sürpriz sorular soruyor bu kitap. Cevap verme/bulma işini okuyucuya bırakıp yoluna devam ediyor.

Tavsiye ediyor muyum?...

[Oğuz Kırman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although it is a book from the past, it is a study that sheds light on many problems we face today.