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

Michael Hoover hoov at freenet.tlh.fl.us
Thu Apr 15 14:43:13 PDT 1999



> Michael Hoover wrote:
> >Claus Offe
> >"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...
>
> If this is the case, how do the U.S. and other liberal countries get by?
> Doug

re: US...James O'Connor made similar argument to that of Offe in _Fiscal Crisis of the State_ (1973)..taking into account 'free market/private enterprise' ideology, he called outlays that subsidize accumulation (i.e., education, infrastructure, transportation) *social capital* and those that go towards legitimation (including some income transfers to elderly, unemployed. and poor) *social expenditures*...because ideological hegemony precluded socializing production that would transcend private appropriation and since state couldn't risk offending propertied class without possible "investment strike," financing occurred through taxing wage-earners and debt creation...

of course, within a decade of the appearance of O'Connor's book, a corporate-led assault was slashing already-meager welfare spending, contracting out and privatizing of public services were coming into vogue, public-sector workers were under attack, and union-busting was undermining the post-WW2 corporate-government-organized labor (with the latter as a decidedly junior partner) tripartite arrangement... capital's strategy for 'resolving' the fiscal crisis...Michael Hoover



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