Publisher's Synopsis
This book has two aims. One is to present the available evidence supporting a classical interpretation of Spanish economic development. The other is to throw light on the effect of mechanization and technical change on profitability in order to explain the causes of the current Depression in Spain. The author argues that the high unemployment in Spain, where approximately a quarter of the able-bodied population is unemployed, is bound up with the collapse of profitability of the mid 1970s that led to the collapse of accumulation. Both of these collapses can be traced to the rapid mechanization of the 1960s. The author discovered a long wave from 1954 to 1993 affecting profits, capacity utilization, investment growth and accumulation rates and culminating in the current Depression. Not only are the prospects for a decline in unemployment dim, he warns, but the magnitude of the problem remains unrecognized by those who have no solutions.
