Capitalists against Markets: The Making of Labor Markets and Welfare States in the United States and Sweden / Edition 1

by Peter A. Swenson

Overview

Captialists Against Markets challenges the conventional wisdom that welfare state builders took their cues from labor and other progressive interests. Instead, Peter Swenson argues, pragmatic social reformers looked for support not only from below but also from above, taking into account capitalists interests and preferences. With original theory and surprising historical evidence, Capitalists Against Markets illuminates the political conditions for greater economic equality and social security in capitalist societies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195142976
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/26/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	9.38(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.19(d)
Lexile:	1580L (what's this?)

About the Author

Northwestern University

Editorial Reviews

"Capitalists Against Markets highlights the important role played by employers in the creation of the American and Swedish welfare states. In a brilliant and original analysis, Swenson show how employer strategies—solidarism in Sweden and segmentalism in the U.S.—were rooted in each country's economic development and gave rise to distinctive public programs. Adroitly blending theory, history, and politics, Swenson has created a masterpiece of comparative scholarship." —Sanford M. Jacoby, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA

"A thought-provoking and edifying work... [an] ambitious developments.... Swenson turns much conventional thinking on its head."—Comparative Politics

"Capitalists Against Markets is a magnificent follow-up on the author's much acclaimed Fair Shares. In this new book, Peter Swenson proposes a much needed correction to the mainstream—and myopic—focus on the role of labor movements in the making of welfare politics. He offers both rich history and strong analysis of how capitalists helped give shape and form to the welfare state and to labor market policies in Sweden and the United States, two countries that exemplify the welfare state extremes. It is both impressive and path-breaking scholarship, and it will no doubt provoke controversy. It certainly should, as it forces us social scientists to take the politics of capitalists far more seriously than has been our want." —Gosta Esping-Anderson, Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

"This is a book of great importance. Marshalling detailed historical evidence, Swenson persuasively challenges the view that employers were uniformly hostile to the creation of the welfare state by showing that this was untrue even in the United States. As an added bonus, it is quite gripping a read." —David Soskice, Research Professor of Political Science, Duke University

From the Publisher