Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies

Download or read book Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies written by Gøsta Esping-Andersen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Golden Age of postwar capitalism has been eclipsed, and with it seemingly also the possibility of harmonizing equality and welfare with efficiency and jobs. Most analyses believe that the emerging postindustrial society is overdetermined by massive, convergent forces, such astertiarization, new technologies, or globalization, all conspiring to make welfare states unsustainable in the future.Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies takes a second, more sociological and more institutional, look at the driving forces of economic transformation. What, as a result, stands out is postindustrial diversity, not convergence. Macroscopic, global trends are undoubtedly powerful, yet theirinfluence is easily rivalled by domestic institutional traditions, by the kind of welfare regime that, some generations ago, was put in place. It is, however, especially the family economy that hold the key as to what kind of postindustrial model will emerge, and to how evolving tradeoffs will bemanaged.Twentieth-century economic analysis depended on a set of sociological assumptions that, now, are invalid. Hence, to better grasp what drives today's economy, we must begin with its social foundations.