ABSTRACT
Successful capital accumulation for a prolonged period requires well functioning institutions that support the activities of the accumulators. These institutions are the continuously reproduced relations among such agencies as states, corporations, labor unions, households, and individuals. The structure of accumulation is a concept used here to designate these institutions, or institutionalized relations among agencies, that collectively enabled major Japanese corporations to become world-level accumulators. This concept of the structure of accumulation is similar to what Marxists call “state monopoly capital” and what the French Regulation School calls “regime of accumulation,” although the emphases are different. Without venturing too deep into the arena of political economy of the state and monopoly capital formation à la Marxists (e.g., Sweezy, 1942; Baran and Sweezy, 1966) or that of the state monopoly capital and labor unions à la Regulationists (e.g., Aglietta, 1979; Lipiets, 1987; Yamada & Sudo, 1991; Yamada, 1994), this chapter attempts to portray the structure of accumulation by focusing on three key “organizations.” These are the organizations of labor, credit, and markets. Section 1 explains the concept of the structure of accumulation and its three key organizations. Section 2 discusses how the organization of labor was formulated in the rapid growth period, and Section 3 reviews the organization of credit and market in the same period.
