2
II. Since the stagnation of the 30'ies great historical
changes have gone on, and they may affect my arguments
about concentration, competition and income distribution,
about excess capacity and stagnation, and their relevance
to the post-war development before and since 1975.
(X v-'Si - • ° O .
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One change has been the opening of the system: The
growing importance of foreign transactions and, even
more, of the state sector, the budget and taxation.
These things were always much more important in Europe
than in the U.S. I chose as a model for my maturity
theory; they have in the meantime become more important
in the U.S. too.
iWvwMA 7
Another change occurred in the labour market. Up to 1974,
more or less, there was full (or high) employment, a
world vastly different from pre-war. It affected, I think,
strongly the distribution of income between labour and
capital. There was a certain shift of competition from
the market for goods to the labour market, (although
this would hardly operate perceptibly in the international
field, where competition in the goods markets continued
to dominate). While the industrial reserve army in Europe
tended to vanish, it was replenished or to some extent
replaced, by influx from agriculture, from the reservoir
of female labour, and from abroad. The cost of training
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