ABSTRACT
The links between accumulation and productivity are at the heart of the growth process. The wave of accumulation in the 1950s and 1960s was accompanied by an exceptional growth in labor productivity and a total disruption of the conditions of production, through the intensification of the capitalist division of labor and the spread of assembly-line work. This development contrasted with much slower transformations during the first half of the twentieth century. Similarly, the slowdown in the growth of labor productivity since the 1970s raises a major question with regard to its origins: did it reflect a simple effect of the stoppage of growth and the freezing of accumulation, a crisis of labor, or an "exhaustion of technical progress"? A new technological transformation is now under way, especially with the spread of computerization and biotechnologies. One of the questions emerging from the current crisis would thus seem to be the future impact of these new technologies on work conditions, employment, and productivity.
