ABSTRACT
Social Structure of Accumulation (SSA) theory is a theory of stages of capitalism. Capitalist stage theory focuses on periods intermediate in length between a short-run business cycle and overall capitalist history. These periods consist of a long period of relatively stable capitalist accumulation followed by a relatively long period of crisis and breakdown. Each of the periods of accumulation is underpinned by a set of institutions designated as an SSA. Examples from the United States include the competitive capitalist SSA in the latter half of the nineteenth century followed by the long depression, the monopoly capitalist SSA established at the beginning of the twentieth century and ending in the Great Depression and the postwar SSA, which ended with the Great Stagflation of the 1970s.
