The state and class discipline: European labour market policy after the financial crisis

This paper looks at two related labour market policies that have persisted and even proliferated across Europe both before and after the financial crisis: wage restraint, and punitive workfare programmes. It asks why these policies, despite their weak empirical records, have been so durable. Moving beyond comparative-institutionalist explanations which emphasise institutional stickiness, it draws on Marxist and Kaleckian ideas around the concept of ‘class discipline’. It argues that under financialisation, the need for states to implement policies that discipline the working class is intensified, even if these policies do little to enable (and may even counteract) future stability. Wage restraint and punitive active labour market policies are two examples of such measures. Moreover, this disciplinary impetus has subverted and marginalised regulatory labour market institutions, rather than being embedded within them

Inequality and the Fragility of Growth

International audienceOver the long run, sustained growth is central to poverty reduction. The rapid growth seen in much of the world over the past few decades — notably, but not only, in China and India — has led to an unprecedented reduction in poverty. And, in general, increases in per capita income tend to translate into proportionate increases in income of the poor. As Dollar and Kraay (2002) memorably put it, “Growth Is Good for the Poor.” All the more reason, then, to place sustainability of growth at the center of any poverty reduction strategy

The global recession of 2009 in a long-term development perspective

This paper argues that the global recession of 2009 marks the ending of a global development cycle which began in the early 1950s. The long-wave rhythm of production and prices in the global development cycle is generated by the life cycle of investment and innovation during a technological revolution, related changes in supply and demand for natural resources, and inertia and transformation in the socio-institutional framework within which development takes place. From this perspective, the global recession is interpreted as a blocked structural transition. Whilst failings in the financial system triggered the global financial crisis, that crisis and the recession are more deeply rooted in contradictions in the global development trajectory. A paradigm shift in development theory and practice is a crucial element of the socio-institutional transformation now necessary to re-boot the global development cycle. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.