The 1973 crisis began a new capitalism immune to state steering and proletarian challenge

Evidence

The global recession of 1973 was the first since the end of World War II and was perhaps most dramatically symbolized by the long lines at gas stations precipitated by the sudden rise in oil prices by OPEC. The result, to simplify a complicated process, was a radical restructuring of the world economic system which ultimately led to, or was at least signaled by, the bankruptcy of the “actually existing socialism” of the East and the piecemeal abandonment of the Keynesian- Fordist policies of the West. What David Harvey has called the rise of a new system of “flexible accumulation” meant the growing importance of international finance capital over the increasingly impotent nation state; the globalization of labor markets producing accelerated migration of cheap foreign labor and the weakening of the trade union movement; the compression of time and space through technological innovations; and the blunting of capitalism’s tendency to overaccumulate through the temporal and spatial displacement of demand. … Although by no means stable and smoothly functioning, the system that began to crystallize in 1973 seems to produce crises that are neither controllable by a conscious steering mechanism (such as state fiscal and monetary policy) nor able to generate a collective social actor, an heir to the Marxist proletariat, able to challenge it from within. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 18

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to David Harvey’s flexible accumulation thesis and post-Fordist political economy, and to the broader post-1973 turn in critical social theory. — connects to: Late capitalism survives crises by incorporating whatever previously stood outside it — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory: A Marxist…, 102; The 1973 recession undermined Fordism and birthed a new accumulation regime — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 864; State intervention made capitalist exploitation political and thereby threatened capitalism itself — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 173 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• The Fordist regime collapsed with the 1973 recession #qualifies (0.78) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 847
• The 1973 recession undermined Fordism and birthed a new accumulation regime #qualifies (0.75) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 864
• State intervention made capitalist exploitation political and thereby threatened capitalism itself #expands (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 173
• The state’s crisis-management role grew in the post-Fordist era rather than shrinking #contradicts (0.72) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1034
• Late capitalism survives crises by incorporating whatever previously stood outside it #corroborates (0.70) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 102