Search Results

The Uniqueness of Labour

Jonathon W. Moses

in Workaway: The Human Costs of Europe's Common Labour Market

This chapter argues that it is a mistake to employ mainstream economic models when deciding how to integrate national labour markets, as the nature of labour is radically different from other goods ... More

This chapter argues that it is a mistake to employ mainstream economic models when deciding how to integrate national labour markets, as the nature of labour is radically different from other goods and services for sale on the market. Labour markets do not function as other markets, because communities (justly) recognize the need to protect labour from exploitation. It is for this reason that labour markets are the most protected markets in the modern economy. Hence, competition plays but a small role in determining wages—political power is much more important. More to the point, workers face a significant ‘cost of distance’, which handicaps labour (relative to capital) when markets are extended to cover greater territory.Less

Housing and welfare states

Stuart Lowe

in The Housing Debate

Housing was neglected in the comparative welfare state literature until very recently. The reason for this appears to relate to some of ‘housing's’ characteristics, particularly that it is found ... More

Housing was neglected in the comparative welfare state literature until very recently. The reason for this appears to relate to some of ‘housing's’ characteristics, particularly that it is found mostly in the private sector, unlike other welfare services. The significance of housing and its critical connection to welfare states was first recognised and explained by Kemeny. Discoveries made by Esping-Andersen showed that there were different types of welfare states in modern capitalist societies. Kemeny's analysis suggests that different housing systems can also be identified, especially those that either promote open, liberal housing markets in which home ownership predominates, or ‘social market’ economies, such as Germany, where housing is not thought of as a commodity but as a social right. The creation of ‘deep’ mortgage markets following the deregulation of banking in the 1980s has connected homeowners to the flow of global capital and impacted on voters' attitudes to taxation and spending on public services. Through the advances made in this work, housing has taken its rightful place as a key feature of how we think about and define twenty-first century welfare states.Less

Conclusion: Useful Subjects?

Matt Erlin

in Necessary Luxuries: Books, Literature, and the Culture of Consumption in Germany, 1770-1815

This conclusion discusses work of art as a very special kind of luxury object, one whose intrinsic structure ensures a particular mode of consumption that neutralizes the potentially harmful effects ... More

This conclusion discusses work of art as a very special kind of luxury object, one whose intrinsic structure ensures a particular mode of consumption that neutralizes the potentially harmful effects of conventional luxury goods. It argues that we must be aware of the contexts of luxury in order to understand how normative conceptions of the fine arts, and literature in particular, emerge in the period. It considers recurring attempts to locate literary work within an expanding world of goods, goods whose qualities are conceived as parallel or in opposition to it. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Die Wahlverwandtschaften illustrates how such an attempt looks in practice. Karl Philipp Moritz's writings also provide a useful starting point for analyzing how the lens of luxury can open up a new perspective on the broader social and cultural significance of the idea of artwork as artifact. This conclusion also examines self-interested desire in terms of a strategy of decommodification.Less

Conclusions

Cristina Solera

in Women in and out of paid work: Changes across generations in Italy and Britain

This chapter summarizes the main findings and discusses their policy implications. It re-opens the issue of individualization and ‘choice’ in women's employment; it reflects on the weight of ... More

This chapter summarizes the main findings and discusses their policy implications. It re-opens the issue of individualization and ‘choice’ in women's employment; it reflects on the weight of ‘preferences’ and ‘constraints’, and on their problematic distinction, given that preferences are endogenous to cultural and institutional models. It discusses how changes across generations and countries have been multifarious and irregular, so that the family/employment trajectories of young women are in some respects more similar to those of their ‘grandmothers’, and in other respects to those of their ‘mothers’. It outlines the extent to which and how the experiences of British and Italian women have grown more convergent. Finally, it resumes the issue of the micro-macro foundations of individual lifecourses and draws some policy conclusions. It argues for the importance of social and labour market policies that combine decommodification with defamilialization, and which support a ‘dual-earner/dual-carer society’, giving more (income-protected) time for care and encouraging male time to care as well. The comparison between Italy and Britain suggests that only policies of this kind can sustain women's attachment to paid work without threatening levels of fertility, gender and class equality, and overall economic and societal sustainability.Less

Guangzhou: At the Forefront of Union Reform?

Eli Friedman

in Insurgency Trap: Labor Politics in Postsocialist China

This chapter asks the question: Can prolabor leadership at the municipal level advance the decommodification and incorporation of labor? Union practitioners (and some scholars) in China frequently ... More

This chapter asks the question: Can prolabor leadership at the municipal level advance the decommodification and incorporation of labor? Union practitioners (and some scholars) in China frequently suggest that leadership can make a very large difference in outcomes, since laws and regulations are often fuzzy and hence subject to interpretation in implementation. The chapter begins with an extended introduction to Chen Weiguang, chair of Guangzhou Federation of Trade Unions (GZFTU) and the man scholars and practitioners view as the most consistently prolabor union leader in China. His rise to power is in itself an indication of tentative first steps toward class compromise, as is the series of prolabor policies that were adopted under his guidance. However, an analysis of labor conditions in the enterprise with supposedly the best union in Guangzhou, Hitachi Elevator, shows that the limited levels of decommodification that have been secured came as a result of state action rather than from the union acting as worker representative.Less

Oligarchic Decommodification?: Sectoral Unions and Crises of Representation

Eli Friedman

in Insurgency Trap: Labor Politics in Postsocialist China

Based on a comparison of sectoral unions in Guangzhou and southeast Zhejiang, this chapter analyzes the impact of regional political economy on organizational form and innovation. Unions in Zhejiang ... More

Based on a comparison of sectoral unions in Guangzhou and southeast Zhejiang, this chapter analyzes the impact of regional political economy on organizational form and innovation. Unions in Zhejiang have been much more successful in engaging in sectoral-level collective bargaining, a development that stems from the region's particular approach to economic development. However, these top-down negotiated contracts still encounter severe institutional obstacles to enforcement, as shown by the case of the Rui'an Eyeglass Union. In showing how regional models of development impact municipal unions' ability to engage in sectoral-level bargaining, it is argued that the existing literature has focused excessively on the issue of external Party control, thereby overlooking the impact of external economic conditions on union activity.Less

Introduction

Elisabeth Anderson

in Agents of Reform: Child Labor and the Origins of the Welfare State

This chapter pays attention to the modern regulatory welfare state, which pushes the welfare state's origin back about fifty years, from the 1880s to the 1830s. It defines regulatory welfare as the ... More

This chapter pays attention to the modern regulatory welfare state, which pushes the welfare state's origin back about fifty years, from the 1880s to the 1830s. It defines regulatory welfare as the web of policies that protect or empower workers by limiting employers' arbitrary power over them. These policies include child labor laws as well as the standard working day, overtime pay requirements, protections against arbitrary dismissal, workplace safety and hygiene standards, family leave laws, the minimum wage, and workers' legal right to organize and engage in collective bargaining. The chapter mentions administrative apparatuses used to carry out and enforce these protections, which are included in the regulatory welfare state. It uses the term “regulatory welfare state,” rather than simply “worker protection,” to underscore that these policies, similar to welfare provisions, are integral to decommodification.Less

Housing policy: the rise and fall of public housing

Paul Watt

in Estate Regeneration and its Discontents: Public Housing, Place and Inequality in London

This chapter outlines and explains the expansion and contraction of London’s public housing from the late 19th century until the 2010s. It argues that public/council housing – the ‘wobbly pillar’ of ... More

This chapter outlines and explains the expansion and contraction of London’s public housing from the late 19th century until the 2010s. It argues that public/council housing – the ‘wobbly pillar’ of the welfare state – has been privatised, demunicipalised and now demolished under regeneration (Chapter 3). Two broad historical periods are delineated: an expansionary period from 1900-80, followed by a contractionary period from the 1980s. This periodisation is theoretically located within the development of the Keynesian welfare state, followed by the latter’s unravelling due to forty years of neoliberalisation. The expansionary period entailed substantial housing decommodification whereby council housing became a significant feature of the metropolitan welfare state, much of which occurred under Labour local governments (e.g. London County Council). Renting from the council became a normalised part of working-class Londoners’ post-War housing experiences (Chapter 5). Such decommodification began to be undermined during the 1960s-70s under Conservative local governments. From 1979, neoliberal policies under Conservative and New Labour central governments – such as the Right-to-Buy, lack of new-building, and stock transfers to housing associations – have resulted in housing recommodification. New Labour’s Decent Homes Programme is assessed; despite some housing quality improvements, it proved to be slow and partial especially in London (Chapter 9).Less

Conclusion

Amy Starecheski

in Ours to Lose: When Squatters Became Homeowners in New York City

The conclusion examines the urban planning implications of this story in the current moment, when some cities are transformed by gentrification while others struggle to make use of tens of thousands ... More

The conclusion examines the urban planning implications of this story in the current moment, when some cities are transformed by gentrification while others struggle to make use of tens of thousands of vacant homes not exchangeable on the market and some, like Detroit, face both problems at once. Squatters’ experiences highlight the limits of homeownership, even low-income, limited equity homeownership, as a strategy to protect and develop truly diverse neighborhoods. They show that stewardship of housing and a rich community life can come without commodified ownership, and that even partial commodification can strain a group’s capacity to house the most vulnerable members of a community. The conclusion ends with discussion of structure and agency, returning to the question raised in the introduction: “Is it possible to create a space outside of capitalism?” In their prefigurative politics, squatters challenged the social and economic relationships of capitalism by creating new ways of claiming property and valuing time, but this project was shaped at every step by patriarchy, white supremacy, class privilege, state power, and private property. Even thus constrained, Lower East Side squatters leave a significant legacy of partially decommodified affordable housing and an inspiring history of direct action, self-determination, and struggle.Less

Re-imagining Parental Leave: a conceptual ‘thought experiment’

Lindsey Doucet and Sophie McKay

Peter Moss, Ann-Zofie Duvander, and Alison Koslowski (eds)

in Parental Leave and Beyond: Recent International Developments, Current Issues and Future Directions

This chapter is a conceptual, pragmatic and imaginative ‘thought experiment’. Broadly informed by Margaret Somers’ ‘historical sociology of concept formation’, which excavates the historicity, ... More

This chapter is a conceptual, pragmatic and imaginative ‘thought experiment’. Broadly informed by Margaret Somers’ ‘historical sociology of concept formation’, which excavates the historicity, genealogies, and relationalities of concepts, we explore several key concepts, particularly commodification/decommodification and familialisation/defamilialisation. We argue that these concepts, and their histories and ensuing debates, are useful for thinking about and re-imagining Parental Leave as a social policy. The chapter begins by engaging with Gøsta Esping-Andersen’s contributions to debates on social policy and welfare states, briefly tracing his work’s roots in the work of Karl Polanyi, which we read with and through the writing of Fred Block and Margaret Somers, and Nancy Fraser. They and others argue that Polanyi’s work can help us understand and challenge relations between current enhanced conditions of neoliberal restructuring, market economies and ‘market fundamentalism’. With a focus on Canada, we map new pathways for future imaginaries in leave-to-care policy making. We argue that new interpretations of Polanyian insights introduce new conceptual configurations to Parental Leave debates, linking neoliberalism, paid work and care work, market fundamentalism, social protection, social citizenship, and entanglements between socio-economic rights and human rights.Less

Types of Social Protection

Pierre Pestieau and Mathieu Lefebvre

in The Welfare State in Europe: Economic and Social Perspectives

There does not exist a single model forthe welfare state in Europe. Each country has its own model, which is the result of its political and social culture and of its economic evolution. There exist ... More

There does not exist a single model forthe welfare state in Europe. Each country has its own model, which is the result of its political and social culture and of its economic evolution. There exist a number of taxonomies of welfare states. In this chapter we favour a taxonomy based on two characteristics: the generosity and the redistributiveness of programs. The main interest of distinguishing among different types of social protection programs is the different implications they have in terms of efficiency, equity, and political sustainability. We observe a trade-off between efficiency and political support on the one hand and equity on the other hand. Other distinguishing features of the welfare state are analysed: individualization, activation, and responsabilization.Less