Abstract

The focus here is on the concept of regulation and its operative character in capitalist nations. Regulation as an operative concept presupposes that the descriptive and normative aspects of the concept of regulation are always held together. For the physiocrats, sometimes considered the first economic school, normative concern led to a descriptive need for knowledge of the nation. The question, then, is whether a social understanding of the concept of regulation can forge a closer link between the analysis of social transformations and expectations in terms of social and ecological justice. The economic school of «la théorie de la regulation» provides the conceptual tools to answer this question.