Creative Reconstructions

Orfeo Fioretos

Description

Twentieth-century Europe was an intense laboratory of capitalist experimentation. Confronted with economic booms and crises, technological revolutions, and economic globalization, Western Europe's governments constantly explored alternative ways of managing domestic economic systems and international commerce. Bridging comparative and international political economy, Creative Reconstructions compellingly expands our understanding of the historic relationship between varieties of capitalism and international cooperation.Orfeo Fioretos' pathbreaking analysis places multilateral institutions at the center of the study of capitalism. He highlights the role played by governments' multilateral strategies in shaping the national trajectories of capitalism in Great Britain, France, and Germany. Fioretos shows that membership in international organizations such as the European Union and its precursors was an integral innovation in the domestic management of capitalism that came to play a central, if varied, role in shaping the evolution of modern market economies.

Sujets

• Histoire
• International economics
• Political economy
• Western Europe
• History of Europe
• European Union
• Central

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 août 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801460715
• Langue: English

Extrait

CreativeReconstructions

A volume in the series

Cornell Studies in Political Economy

Edited by Peter J. Katzenstein

Alistoftitlesinthisseriesisavailableatwww.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

CreativeReconstructions

MultilateralismandEuropean VarietiesofCapitalismafter1950

OrfeoFioretos

CornellUniversityPress Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2011 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2011 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Fioretos, Karl Orfeo, 1966–  Creative reconstructions : multilateralism and European varieties of capitalism after 1950 / Orfeo Fioretos.  p. cm. — (Cornell studies in political economy)  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9780801449697 (cloth : alk. paper)  1. Europe—Economic policy. 2. Europe—Foreign economic relations. 3. Capitalism—Europe. 4. International trade agencies—Europe. 5. European cooperation. I. Title. II. Series: Cornell studies in political economy.  HC240.F457 2011  330.94—dc22 2011000864

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Contents

Prefaceix

1. Capitalist Diversity in Open Economies 1

2. Governments, Business, and the Design Problem 16

3. Three Models of Open Governance 44

4. Britain: From Replacing to Reinforcing a Liberal Market Economy 68

5. France: The Centralized Market Economy and Its Alternatives 99

6. Germany: Stability and Redesign in a Coordinated Market Economy 136

7. Lessons from Capitalist Diversity and Open Governance 172

Appendix185

Notes193

References211

Index 239

Preface

JosephA.Schumpeter,theAustrianeconomistwhoseconceptofcreativede struction received so much new attention in the last decade of the twentieth century, remarked that “capitalism not only never is but never can be stationary” (1942, 82). He argued that the corporate sector stood to lose more from choosing the status quo than from reform when it faced greater competition. Schumpeter’s notion of cre ative destruction became a leitmotif in the debate over the consequences of global ization. Policymakers used the term to underscore that in the age of globalization, it was important to embrace the new and shed the old. Scholars attributed changes in economic governance to creative destruction—and instances of limited change to political inefficiencies. But in linking economic globalization so closely to pro cesses of creative destruction, scholars often overlooked other creative responses to greater competition, including the innovative ways in which governments and the corporate sector sought topreservehistoric designs. Thisbookexploresthecreativewaysinwhichgovernmentsandthecorporate sector destroyed and preserved integral features of national economic systems through periods of profound change in Europe’s advanced market economies. Reforms in economic systems are often about dismantling past designs, but equally if not more often in some periods, they are about protecting designs that are deemed integral to success in the face of technological revolutions, economic crises, and the integration of international markets. After World War II, however, the politics of in stitutional destruction and preservation went beyond national borders and entailed a significant and evolving commitment to international cooperation and the insti tution of multilateralism. This book finds that the manner in which governments reconciled their domestic reform agendas with their multilateral commitments pro foundly shaped the institutional evolution of Europe’s largest market economies. WesternEuropewasaveritablelaboratoryofinstitutionalinnovationafter1950. Governments actively and frequently engaged in extensive reforms that aimed to alter the structure of their economies. With a debt to the varieties of capitalism tradition pioneered by Peter A. Hall and David Soskice (2001), this book examines the distributional conflicts associated with economic reform and explores how these