The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism

This book traces how individuals fare over time in each of the three principal types of welfare state.

Robert E. Goodin (Author), Bruce Headey (Author), Ruud Muffels (Author), Henk-Jan Dirven (Author)

9780521596398, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 30 September 1999

372 pages, 35 b/w illus. 17 tables
22.9 x 15.3 x 2.4 cm, 0.607 kg

"This book will engage readers intrigued with the different forms that capitalism can take, and reformers searching for ways in which it can be made more humane...There is much to recommend here...Footnotes provide rich extensions of points of dispute and some alternative views, and useful links to related material...this study provides eye-opening examples of other ways to do capitalism...For a world that seems to be growing tired of neoliberal precepts, this study of other ways to live with capitalism will be most welcome." Review of Radical Political Economics

The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism traces how individuals fare over time in each of the three principal types of welfare state. Through a unique analysis of panel data from Germany, the Netherlands and the US, tracking individuals' socio-economic fate over fully ten years, Goodin, Headey, Muffels and Dirven explore issues of economic growth and efficiency, of poverty and inequality, of social integration and social autonomy. It is common to talk of the inevitability of tradeoffs between these goals. However, in this book the authors contend that the social democratic welfare regime, represented here by the Netherlands, equals or exceeds the performance of the corporatist German regime and the liberal US regime across all these social and economic objectives. They thus argue that, whatever one's priorities, the social democratic welfare regime is uniquely well-suited to realizing them.

Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
Part I. Setting the Scene: 2. Reasons for welfare
3. Alternative institutional designs
4. National embodiments
5. Background expectations
6. Testing the theories with panels
Part II. One Standard of Success: External Moral Criteria: 7. Promoting efficiency
8. Reducing poverty
9. Promoting equality
10. Promoting integration
11. Promoting stability
12. Promoting autonomy
Part III. Another Standard of Success: Internal Institutional Criteria: 13. The United States as a liberal welfare regime
14. The Netherlands as a social democratic welfare regime
15. Germany as a corporatist welfare regime
16. Conclusions
Appendix tables
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Social welfare & social services [JKS]