The French Regulation Approach and its Theory of Consumption

This study criticises Regulation’s Consumption theory. First, it pinpoints the significance of consumption for Regulation. Then, it criticises it: (a) its Value theory, by arguing that the regulationist conception of the value of labour-power and its theory of wage is theoretically and empirically unsound. (b) Aglietta’s (1979) macroeconomic model of the relations between the two departments of production (c) Regulation’s analysis of the 1929 crisis as underconsumptionist. Additionally, it is shown that RA’s Consumption theory is instrumental for its trajectory towards post-modernism and the related abandonment of class analysis.