on of the net product between consumption and accumulation; it implies some correspondence between the transformation of both the conditions of production and the conditions of reproductive wage earners." This must entail the formation of a knowable and predictable configuration of "norms, habits, laws, regulating networks and so on that ensure the unity of the process, i.e. the appropriate consistency of individual behaviors with the schema of reproduction." This task of regulating and ensuring the sustainability of the regime of accumulation is the mode of social and political regulation. The regime of accumulation under Fordism relied on the link between mass production and mass consumption. In order to fuel the cycle of economic activity, wages had to be sufficiently high to support mass consumption. This mass consumption drove demand and productive activity for firms, which were afforded profits used to reinvest in productive ventures. This virtuous cycle of cumulative economic activity was thought to perpetuate itself indefinitely once full employment was realized.The purpose of the state under Fordism was to stabilize the free markets inherent crisis tendencies. The obligations of the state in this form of capitalist organization were numerous. In order to ensure the profitability of mass production, with its high fixed cost of investment, the state had to continually mitigate business cycles through active monetary and fiscal policy aimed at guaranteeing stable aggregate demand: "The process of social regulation under Fordism was anchored in the Keynesian welfare state, under which collective bargaining and monopoly pricing were institutionalized, policy instruments were deployed to maintain and manage aggregate demand, and norms of mass consumption and American ways of life were generalized." Additionally, government expenditures covering social security, health care, education, and housing all sought to stabilize t...
