Over the weekend I finished Paul Mason’s rather excellent book, Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future. While I don’t agree with everything he argues, Mason presents a fascinating thesis that the advent of info-technology, mixed with other social factors (in particular the demise of the labour movement) is causing such a fault within capitalism that it is leading to its final collapse.
Whilst Mason’s thesis is worthy of its own post (maybe later), today I want to spend a bit of timing discussing his historical analysis. Mason spends a lot of his book looking at the history of capitalism, and the concept of the Kondratieff Wave. The Kondratieff Wave is a theory of the cycles of Capitalism developed by The Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratieff, who was eventually murdered by the Stalinist regime.
Kondratieff argued that the inherent contradictions within capitalism caused the system to operate within fifty year cycles. Each of these cycle operate as a wave — initiated by an economic and technological boom, followed by a downswing and economic crash, which results in 20 – 30 years of stagnation. The struggles of this stagnation eventually result in another boom. Mason describes what he calls his ‘normative restatement of long-cycle theory’ (adding in extra elements on top of Kondratieff’s theory) as such (sorry some long quotes coming up):
- “The start of a wave is usually preceded by the build-up of capital in the finance system, which stimulates the search for new markets and triggers the rollout of clusters of new technologies. The initial surge sparks wars and revolutions, leading at some point to the stabilization of the world market around a new set of rules or arrangements.
- Once the new technologies, business models and market structures begin to work in synergy — and the new ‘technological paradigm’ is obvious — capital rushes into the productive sector, fuelling a golden age of above-average growth with new recessions. Since profit is everywhere, the concept of allocating it rationally between players becomes popular, as does the possibility of redistributing wealth downwards. The era feels like one of ‘collaborative competition’ and social peace.
- Throughout the whole cycle, the tendency to replace labour with machines operates. But in the upswing, any fall in the profit rate is counterbalances by the expanded scale of production, so overall profits rise. In each of the up cycles, the economy has no trouble absorbing new workers into the workforce even as productivity increases. By the 1920s, for example, the glassblower displaced by machinery becomes the projectionist in a cinema, or the worker on a car production line.
- When the golden age stalls, it is often because euphoria has produced sectoral over-investment, or inflation, or a hubristic war led by the dominant powers. There is usually a traumatic ‘break point’ — where uncertainty over the future of business models, currency arrangements and global stability becomes general.
- Now the first adaptation begins: there is an attack on wages and an attempt to de-skill the workforce. Redistribution projects, such as the welfare state or the public provision of urban infrastructure, come under pressure. Business models evolve rapidly in order to grab what profit there is; the state is urged to organize more rapid change. Recessions become more frequent.
- If the initial attempt to adapt fails (as it did in the 1830s, 1870s and 1920s), capital retreats from the productive sector and into the finance systems, so that crises assume a more overtly financial forms. Prices fall. Panic is followed by depression. A search begins for more radical new technologies, business models and new supplies of money. Global power structures become unstable.”
Pgs. 72 – 73.
Using this theory Mason outlines 4 – 5 long cycles over the history of capitalism:
- “1790 – 1848: The first long cycle is discernible in the English, French and US data. The factory system, steam-powered machinery and canals are the basis of the new paradigm. The turning point is the depression of the late 1820s. The 1848 – 51 revolutionary crisis in Europe, mirrored by the Mexican War and Missouri compromise in the US, forms a clear punctuation point.
- 1848 – mid 1890s: The second long cycle is tangible across the developed world and, by the end of it, the global economy. Railways, the telegraph, ocean-going steamers, stable currencies and machine-produced machinery set the paradigm. The wave peaks in the mid 1870s, with financial crisis in the USA and Europe leading to the Long Depression (1873 – 96). During the 1880s and 90s, new technologies are developed in response to economic and social crises, coming together at the start of the third cycle.
- 1890s — 1945: In the third cycle heavy industry, electrical engineering, the telephone, scientific management and mass production are the key technologies. The break occurs at the end of the First World War; the 1930s depression, followed by the destruction of capital during the Second World War terminate the downswing.
- Late 1940s — 2008: In the fourth long cycle transistors, synthetic materials, mass consumer goods, factory automation, nuclear power and automatic calculation create the paradigm — producing the longest economic boom in history. The peak could no be clearer: the oil shock of October 1973, after which a long period of instability takes place, but no major depression.
- In the late-1990s, overlapping with the end of the previous wave, the basic elements of the fifth long cycle appear. It is driven by network technology, mobile communications, a truly global marketplace and information goods. But it has stalled. And the reason it has stalled has something to do with neoliberalism and something to do with technology itself.
(pgs. 47 – 48)”
As you can see Mason argues that the final cycles — the one that was supposed to begin with the tech boom in the 1990s has essentially stalled. It’s not operating as it should. The weakness of the trade union movement has stopped any wage growth, whilst the development of info-technology has challenged the profit capacity of many companies, primarily through the spread of free information. Whilst we have see a technological boom (info-tech) we are not seeing the same sort of economic boom that normally follows it.
While reading about these cycles I had a huge lightbulb moment. I’ve started to wonder whether gender and sexual politics operate in similar sorts of cycles as capitalist economics.
From initial understandings of the 20th Century you can already see two of these cycles at play. The first is from the 1890s – 1945. Following the long depression of the late 1800s nuclear family structures in capitalist economies stabilised and flourished. This coincides with the boom period of that era, facilitated by heavy industry and mass production. This boom however ended in the 1920s and early 30s with an economic crash that caused the Great Depression. We can see a similar ‘crash’ in the traditional family form, with a sexual revolution that is now colloquially known as the ‘swinging twenties’ or the ‘roaring twenties’. The ‘swinging twenties’ was not just about music and speakeasies, but also encompassed a liberalisation of social mores across the US, Britain and Mainland Europe. Prior to the rise of Nazism for example the late 20s and early 30s were an era of great sexual liberalisation in Germany, with thinkers and practitioners such as Magnus Hirschfeld gaining a name in the increasingly liberal Berlin. These problems for the family continued right up until 1945, with women entering the workforce in force during the second world war.
As we enter the next long wave we can see a similar cycle. With men returning back from the war women were pushed out of the jobs they held in supporting the war effort. The booming economy required the growth of a new working class, resulting in the ‘baby boom’. Women stayed at home, looking after their growing families. Rising wages made this possible, with men being able to sustain their entire family, and the new consumer goods they were wanting to buy, off one wage. In this time we can also see a regression on ‘alternate sexualities’ — largely based in a medicalisation of homosexuality and other ‘deviant’ forms of sexualities. These sexualities provided a threat to the booming capitalist economy and in turn were suppressed (this is a backwards step based on the liberalisation of the 1930s).
As the long economic boom started to wane however, so did our sexual politics. With the economy starting to struggle women moved back into the workforce. Lowering wages required that they take on a chunk of the wage earning of the family. The crisis of the seventies also coincides with the birth of the modern feminist and gay liberation movements, an explosion on to the scene for liberal feminist and queer rights. This was compounded even more by the development of one of the most important pieces of technology ever — the pill. Changes in economic circumstances, alongside technological development, I argue, allowed feminists and queers to have a greater capacity to express their voice, and in turn to build stronger movements.
I need to do some more research on whether these sorts of cycles extend back into the 1800s, but on a brief glance I think they do. For example, Mason describes the third long wave to end in the mid 1890s, stating that “the wave peaks in the mid 1870s, with financial crisis in the USA and Europe leading to the Long Depression (1873 – 96).” A brief look back and we can see that the economic crisis coincides with what is colloquially known as the “gay nineties” or the “naughty nineties”. This decade (the 1890s) is known for a burst of decadent art, the plays and trial of Oscar Wilde and potentially most importantly for the beginning of the Suffragette Movement. Whilst the 1890s is would have been when this movement exploded, it is certain that its origins began well before that (coinciding with the economic crash that lead to the Long Depression).
If sex, and gender and sexual politics work in cycles therefore, we have to ask the questions, why, and how? I have already posited the thesis that sexuality exists as a contradiction within capitalist society. Capitalism, I argue, created many of the requirements for bursts of sexual freedom (a focus on individuality, increasing urbanisation etc. etc.) but that this very freedom presents a threat to the system itself. Sexual freedom challenges essential parts of the capitalist system — in particular the privatisation of domestic work, the lineages of inheritance and a focus on family that places an emphasis on breeding the next generation of the working class. Sex and capitalism therefore exist in an uneasy alliance — a contradiction and a balance that must be managed at all times in order for both systems (capitalism and an individualised politics of sexuality) to survive. This is a balance that aims to maintain a promise of sexual freedom, while ensuring that this promise never crosses the boundary to threaten the nature of a system.
As with the other contradictions of capitalism therefore this balance can, and clearly does, get knocked out of whack on a semi-regular basis. The balance can not be maintained at all times and at times must break. As capitalism fluctuates in cycles it is natural that so would our understandings and practices of sex.
On a basic we can see how these fluctuations work. In the start of the ‘long waves’ that Paul Mason describes, where new technologies lead to economic booms, families would become solidified by these economic circumstances. Economic growth would lead to stability, leading to people desiring bigger families, both for cultural means and as someone to pass their inheritance on to. Rising wages would also allow for people to cut their working hours, putting women back into the home to look after their children. This would be backed up by new cultural expectations, primarily that of families being focused on childrearing. The concept of “one for mum, one for dad, and one for the country” becomes the social norms. This cultural reaction would not just affect heterosexual relationships but also have impacts on queers — people who are increasingly seen as not doing their national economic duty.
As economic times start to falter however, the nature of the family chang
es as well. Women are required to enter the workforce, in turn creating challenges to the stable nuclear family. Families also have fewer children, creating more time for women to be in employment. This challenges the power structures of families, often resulting in people marrying later in life, as well as getting divorced more often. In these economic situations work is also considered to be more important that child-rearing. Here people of ‘deviant sexualities’ can be brought into the capitalist fold, as long as they conduct the required work to help the capitalist economy.
Here we can see a wave. As the global economy booms so does the state of the capitalist nuclear family. As the economy crashes, so goes down these family structures. So we can see the interactions between sex and our capitalist society — one that is far more interlinked than even I had originally envisaged.
These thoughts are just preliminary at the moment and I do not think the waves that Mason describes are perfectly lined up with different iterations of sexual politics. But this is definitely something worth pursuing!