RE: [OPE] Are Regulation Theorists Marxists?

Hi Jerry,
sorry for delaying to answer but I was on vacations and Attica is in fire.

I did not argue that a theory's boom or bust is evidence of its explanatory
competence. Now if we agree that Regulation is in a state of demise I think the
reason is not that it remained confined to France. In fact it expanded
considerably - Patrick's exposition of its southafrican oofshoots reveals that.

In my opinion, and this I suggested in my papers, is that its demise was caused
for a series of reasons.
The main is the explanatory deficiencies of 'middle range- theory, its
confinement to mainly descriptive explanations and its inability to provide
general analysis. Broadly speaking, 'middle range' theory poses as self-evident
certain empirical believes (stylised facts) without properly investigating them
(e.g. mass consumption etc.) and then creates a theory and concepts that
vindicates these empirical believes. This is a circular reasoning.

Now when the glitter of these empirical believes passes away (if they are wrong
or overstated) then reality recalls back to earth these types of circular
reasoning. This was the case of Fordism.

Concomitantly, Regulation failed - in my opinion that was to be expected - to
define adequately post-Fordism as an explanation of the 1973 structural crisis.

There are also several other reasons for its demise (its recourse to
institutionalism and post-modernism being among them) but the abovementioned
are the basic from which the rest followed.

Best regards

Stavros

Quoting GERALD LEVY <gerald_a_levy@msn.com>:

>
> > Overall, I argued that today Regulation is in a state of demise.
>
>
> Hi Stavros:
>
> Well, yes, I'd say that you're probably right on that point but that
> doesn't tell us why.
>
> In any event, whether a theory is booming or busting can not
> be seen as evidence for or against a perspective.
>
> Having said that, I suspect that part of the reason for thew 'demise'
> of this school is that it never really moved beyond the confines of
> French intellectual and university life. So, when the French Left went
> into decline so did regulationist perspectives.
>
> In solidarity, Jerry_______________________________________________
> ope mailing list
> ope@lists.csuchico.edu
> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
>

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Received on Mon Aug 24 03:00:17 2009