p The driving force of world capitalism’s cyclic development, according to Karl Marx’s conclusions, lies in the sphere of industrial production. The indices considered above characterise the overall picture of this development in its most general features. They need further refinement and concretisation, of course, both for the separate industries and the individual countries.

p How has cyclic growth of the world economy developed, then, in terms of the basic industries?

p In the first place there is a clear dependence of the rates of growth of the extraction and manufacturing industries (see Table 21), a dependence that is quite explicable and is governed primarily by periodically changing demand at any stage of the cyclic development of manufacturing for raw materials and fuel. In boom years, of course, the level of production growth rates in the extraction industries is usually lower than in the manufacturing industries. This reflects
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210 Table 2l Growth Rales of the Extraction and 15asic (in percentages of Manufacturing Industries of World Capitalism the preceding year) Industry 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 I960 I 4 1 9 5.5 3.5 -3 4 7.5 II 7.5 0 10.5 4.5 3 -2.5 11 7.5 III 9.5 —1.5 13.5 4 3.5 -4.5 13 8.5 IV 4.5 3 6 5.5 3.5 0 8 4.5 1 4 3 4 3.5 3.5 3.5 4 4 2 7.5 2 5 4.5 2 —3.5 9 3.5 3 4 —1 7 5.5 3 -1 9 4.5 4 10 6 11 5 2.5 1 10 4.5 5 2 4 9.5 1.5 _ 2 0 11 3.5 6 5.5 4 11.5 5 2.5 —1 11 6 7 10 6 13 7.5 7 3 12 10 8 6.5 —6 22 1 1 —13 13 8 9 10 —3 13 4.5 3.5 —4.5 13 8 * Estimated 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 196U 19U7 1968 1969 1970 1971 3.5 4.5 5 5 4 4.5 3. 5 6 4.5 6 2 3.5 6 6.5 8.5 8 8 2. 5 7.5 7.5 2 1 3.5 8 7 10 9 9 2. 5 8 9 2 2.5 3.5 4.5 5 6 fc.5.5 5.5 1. 5 6 5.5 2 4 4 4 5 5 5 4.5 3. 5 3.5 5.5 4 4.5 2.5 4.5 4 6 4 5.5 0 8 5.5 1 j 4 3 5.5 4 5 4 3.5 —1 4.5 2 —3 4.5 4.5 4.5 5.5 7 6.5 8 1. 5 5.5 6.5 2 1.5 3.5 5.5 4 8 6.5 4.5 1. 5 7.5 6.5 1 5.5 4.5 6 5 10 4.5 3.5 1 7.5 7.5 2 5 6 9.5 8.5 11 9 10.5 6. 5 12 10.5 5 6 1 3 6.5 13.5 6 3.5 —1 8 11 1 —3.5 3.5 8 6.5 8 9.5 10 2. 5 2.5 8.5 1 2 Notes: aggregate industries: I—mining; II—total manufacturing: III— 1—food beverages, tobacco; 2—textiles; 3—wearing apparel & metallic mineral products; 7—chemicals; 8—basic metals; 9—metal Sources: rounded estimates from The Growth oj World Industry, UN Statistical heavy industry; IV—light industry. Separate manufacturing industries: footwear; 4—paper printing and publishing; 5—wood products; 6—- nonproducts. Yearbook, Monthly Bulletin oi Staliitia for the appropriate years. Continued
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the objective tendency towards a slower postwar development of the former, its growth rates in the 60s and 70s, for example, being around 3.6 per cent, while those of the latter were 4.8 per cent.

p When we are analysing the development of these industries, however, we cannot help seeing that their cyclic fluctuations coincide as a rule in time. In the period under review, for all the diversity of the annual indices, the highest rates for the aggregate of the one and the other occurred in roughly the same year. The lows of the cycles also almost coincided, and fell in 1954, 1958, 1961, 1967, 1971, and 1975. Within these years the differences in the lows and the temporal parameters of their fluctuations by separate quarters, and especially separate months, was very great. And although the proportion of minerals and fuel was comparatively low, the marked synchronism of the annual fluctuations in the extraction and manufacturing industries largely determined the periodicity of the succession of the phases of the modern capitalist cycle noted in Fig. 14. The data of Table 21 also
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211 Proporndustry tion in 1972 1973 1974 1975 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981* I 14.0 3 6.5, j 0.5 -8.5 9 4.5 ___ 4 4 —3. 5 II 79.2 7.5 9.5 0.5 -7.5 9 4 4 4.5 —0. 5 III 51.1 8.5 11.5 1.5 ___ Q 9.5 4.5 5 5.5 —0. 5 IV 28.1 6.5 5.5-0.5 -3.5 7.5 3 2.5 3.5 —0. 5 1 10.5 5 5 1 5.5 5.5 3 3.5 3 1. 5 2 4.1 7.5 5 -3.5 -4.5 7.5 —1 1 4 5 __ 1 5 3 3.2 7 0 —1 -0.5 6.5 0 0 1 —3. 5 4 6 6.5 7.5 0.5 —11 9.5 3 4.5 5.5 1. 5 5 3.4 9 7.5 -3.5 —8 9.5 3.5 1 3.5 —2. 5 6 3.4 6 8.5 0 —7.5 8.5 4.5 5 4.5 —0. 5 7 12.5 10.5 10 2 -8 13 7 5 5.5 —2 8 5.9 8.5 12.5 1.5 -15 9 0.5 5.5 5 9 29.2 8 12.5 1.5 -8 8.5 5 5 5.5 1
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indicate that the industrial cycle in the world capitalist system is mainly governed, as before, by the sphere of manufacturing industry, its main industries, moreover, playing a far from identical role in this process. Their role is 212 largely determined by the value and relative weight that any one industry has in the total volume of industrial production.

p The marked differences hetween industries on this plane are initially characterised by the summary indices of the cyclic growth of light, and especially of heavy, industry. It is in the manufacturing sectors of heavy industry (which has been taking an increasingly leading place in recent decades compared with light industry) that the modern world industrial cycle is largely generated. And the main impulses of the development of this cycle come quite logically from the developed capitalist countries.

p In an analysis of the long-term trends of development of the world business cycle, the fact that periods of boom and downturn of the growth rates of light and heavy industries have converged quite closely is of paramount importance, but the range of the fluctuations between the highs and lows of the cycle in the light industries has not been so considerable as a rule as in the heavy industries, which is a consequence in the main of their slower growth rates.  [212•1  In other words, the features of the latter cyclic movement compared with the former’s have led to a certain smoothing out of the acuteness of the cyclic fluctuations reflected in the summary indices of the development of manufacturing as a whole, and consequently of total world industrial production.

p In fact, there has been no major branch of manufacturing industry in the postwar period whose development has run counter to the dynamics of the world capitalist cycle c nsidered above. But in some industries, because of their specific conditions, the cyclic fluctuations have not been so distinct and have been smoother. That applies above all to the food and drink industries in which the fluctuations of growth rates have always been relatively shallow in contrast to those, for example, of such light industries as textiles, clothing, and footwear. In the postwar period (with the exception ot the crises of the mid-70s and early 80s) annual growth of the 213 production of foodstuffs did not fall below 3.5 per cent, but also did not go higher than 5.5 per cent. Even during these crises, however, there was no absolute decline of production, although the growth curve sagged steeply. Over the postwar period to 1974 inclusive there was no decline in the annual growth rates of one of the most dynamic spheres of light industry, viz., paper and printing. In those years only once, in 1957, was there an absolute decline in the volume of production of the woodworking industries, but during the last two crises there was quite a substantial decline.

p There are also branches of heavy industry in which there was only a relative slowing of the growth rates of production in the crisis phases of the postwar world cycles. In the chemical industries, for example, developing very rapidly under the impact of scientific and technical progress, growth rates were not once below 3 per cent, except in 1975, although the cyclic variations in them were quite marked. In the cycle of 1954-58, for example, the gap between the highest and lowest annual levels was fourfold (13 per cent and 3 per cent). Thus, separate groups of industries affect the course and development of the world cycle differently. The basic metal and metal-working industries have a leading place in this respect. Their cyclic fluctuations, combined with corresponding spurts and declines in the growth rates of several light industries (textiles, clothing and footwear) play the most active role in shaping the postwar industrial cycle. They have also primarily determined the depth of its crisis phases.

p The four groups of industries reviewed below include, as before, the bulk of the industrial output of the capitalist economy. Their development trends mainly characterise the cyclic course of production of the corresponding light and heavy industries. Despite the quite natural differences in their dynamics, the graph brings out with extraordinary clarity the same temporal synchronism of cyclic fluctuations, with an average periodicity of four to six years, which cannot, of course, be explained at all by patterns in the periodic renewal of their fixed capital. The periods of this renewal, moreover, are essentially specific in each industry and usually have a much longer character linked in the main with the gradual obsolescence and wear and tear of equipment.

The prime causes of the periodicity of the fluctuation of industrial, and generally of economic, cycles noted in the 214 postwar capitalist economy, are undoubtedly governed by a complex set of very different factors. To explain them calls for a special industry-by-industry and country-by-country analysis, but it is clear in any case that this periodicity stems from the regular interconnection objectively established in recent decades between the cyclic variations of the growth of industrial production and the ratio of aggregate supply and demand on the world and national markets, which spontaneously govern the volume of this production. The contracting periodicity over the postwar decades in turn characterises the growing instability of capitalism’s economy. Study of this consistent postwar periodicity is essential in order to explain not just the past and current trends of world capitalism’s development, but—and this is the main point—the outlook for coming decades.