[Fwd: Social democracy betrayed -- Le Monde diplomatique]

Michael Hoover hoov at freenet.tlh.fl.us
Tue Apr 13 06:03:20 PDT 1999



> I've been reading a lot of Luxembourg Income Study papers, and
> it's clear that the social democratic countries, esp the Nordic ones, did
> in their heyday partly decommodify economic life in the sense of greatly
> buffering the link between market incomes and material welfare
> Doug

above was Claus Offe's argument before he went off into new social movements, 'post-communist' transitions, and 'beyond employment'...

"Under modern capitalist conditions, a supportive framework of non- commodified institutions is necessary for an economic system that utilizies labor power is if it were a commodity." (The Contradictions of the Welfare State, p. 263)

in other words, the capitalist system of commodified production (competitive market) requires a certain degree of political intervention (state regulation) and decommodified provision (social welfare) to sustain and reproduce itself (capital accumulation)...

capitalist state has contradictory functions - accumulation & legitimation...Michael Hoover



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