scholarly journals The substitutive state? Neoliberal state interventionism across industrial, housing and private pensions policy in the UK

2021 ◽  
pp. 102452942199084
Author(s):  
Craig Berry
Keyword(s):  
Mortgage Lending ◽  
Pension Scheme ◽  
Regulatory State ◽  
Private Pensions ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
State Action ◽  
Competition State ◽  
Economic Statecraft ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
The Uk

This article advances the notion of ‘the substitutive state’ to explore the changing character of state institutions and state action in the context of neoliberalization. This understanding is contrasted with alternative accounts of state neoliberalization such as ‘the regulatory state’ and ‘the competition state’. It focuses upon the UK, and three domains of economic statecraft in particular: industrial policy (primarily the May government’s 2017 industrial strategy), housing policy (primarily extensive support for mortgage lending and borrowing since the 2008 financial crisis) and private pensions policy (primarily the establishment of state-owned pension scheme providers in the context of ‘automatic enrolment’ regulations). The article argues that state action in the UK increasingly encompasses new mechanisms for intervention in the private economy. However, associated policy practices are rarely strategic or purposeful. Interventionist mechanisms are often populated by the private economic actors implicated in the problem intervention is designed to solve, or are used to relieve the private sector from serving unprofitable market segments. Substitutive statism is aligned with a wider accumulation regime which state actors perceive as immutable; they are therefore willing to intervene to sustain this regime, irrespective of market signals. In short, state institutions have a more expansive interventionist footprint, but are doing less with more. In contrast to accounts of ‘the neoliberal state’, we should not assume that these institutions add up to ‘ the state’, albeit a state with neoliberal characteristics. State action has always been a central, organizing element of neoliberalism, although its form has evolved as neoliberal ideas confront capitalist accumulation in practice.

State Formation in Korea and Japan, 400–800 CE: Emulation and Learning, Not Bellicist Competition

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Chin-Hao Huang ◽  
David C. Kang
Keyword(s):  
Power System ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
East Asia ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Internal Stability ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Bureaucratic Control ◽  
Administrative Capacity ◽  
Competition State

Abstract State formation occurred in Korea and Japan 1,000 years before it did in Europe, and it occurred for reasons of emulation and learning, not bellicist competition. State formation in historical East Asia occurred under a hegemonic system in which war was relatively rare, not under a balance-of-power system with regular existential threats. Korea and Japan emerged as states between the fifth and ninth centuries CE and existed for centuries thereafter with centralized bureaucratic control defined over territory and administrative capacity to tax their populations, field large militaries, and provide extensive public goods. They created these institutions not to wage war or suppress revolt: the longevity of dynasties in these countries is evidence of both the peacefulness of their region and their internal stability. Rather, Korea and Japan developed state institutions through emulation and learning from China. The elites of both copied Chinese civilization for reasons of prestige and domestic legitimacy in the competition between the court and the nobility.

Social initiatives and social solidarity under austerity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Fuhr
Keyword(s):  
Social Stratification ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Societal Level ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Social Initiatives ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
The Uk

The 2008 financial crisis resulted in a protracted recession in Europe of a kind not seen since the Great Depression. Austerity policies in both countries have increased the presence of and need for social initiatives such as foodbanks and, with them, civic engagement. Foodbanks are often viewed as social solidarity organisations that usually distribute donated food among people in need. Considering that Germany and the UK have both seen a considerable expansion of foodbanks in recent years, this chapter, using the method of ethnography, examines to what extent and thereby how foodbanks in Germany and the UK can construct social solidarity under austerity. The chapter argues that while foodbanks can create a societal representation of solidarity, they can also reproduce social stratification and segregation on the ground. It shows that foodbanks can generate a public image of solidarity on the macro-level, meaning on the societal level, but may struggle to do so on the micro-level, in other words in the interactions between service providers and recipients.

scholarly journals The cult of the equity for pension funds: should it get the boot?

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHARLES SUTCLIFFE
Keyword(s):  
Asset Allocation ◽  
Risk Sharing ◽  
Pension Scheme ◽  
Defined Benefit ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Equity Prices ◽  
Risk Return ◽  
History Of ◽  
Complete Rejection ◽  
The Uk

Over the last half century UK defined benefit pension schemes have followed the cult of the equity by investing a large proportion of their assets in equities. However, since the turn of the millennium this cult has faced two serious challenges – the halving of equity prices, and the complete rejection of equity investment by the Boots pension scheme in 2001. This paper summarises the history of the cult in the UK and the arguments advanced at the time to support its adoption. It then presents the case for the cult (excluding taxation, risk sharing and default insurance). This is followed by a detailed consideration of the validity of this case, including an examination of the relevant empirical evidence. It is concluded that, in the absence of taxation, risk sharing and default insurance, the asset allocation is indeterminate; and depends on the risk-return preferences adopted by the trustees.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Peter Sloman
Keyword(s):  
Political Agenda ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Minimum Income ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Working Age ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Negative Income Tax

The 2008 financial crisis and the era of austerity that followed have pushed poverty and inequality to the top of the political agenda for the first time in a generation. One of the most striking responses has been the surge of interest in a Universal Basic Income—an idea which has circulated in British politics since at least the First World War, and has intersected with proposals for more selective and conditional forms of minimum income. This introduction examines the history of guaranteed income in modern Britain from two perspectives: an ideational story about the circulation and development of basic income, Negative Income Tax, and tax credit schemes, and a public policy story about the growth of cash transfers since the 1970s. It argues that the UK has become a ‘transfer state’ in which working-age benefits play a central role in legitimating a particular form of post-industrial liberal capitalism.

The Separation of Powers

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. W. Barber
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The State ◽  
Institutional Framework ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
State Action ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
Single State

The point of the separation of powers is examined, and it is argued that accounts of the principle that identify liberty as the guiding purpose of the principle are flawed, the products of an unattractive account of the state. A richer understanding of the state produces a richer understanding of the principle. The second and third parts of the chapter outline such an account, reflecting on the institutional framework required by the separation of powers: the divisions and connections that the principle demands. Different state institutions are well-placed to identify different aspects of the common good and, through their differing skills and instruments, well-suited to modify the policies of the state in light of these assessments. The constitution then combines these decisions into a single state action. The chapter then considers apparent exceptions to the separation of powers.

Auto-Pilot

2021 ◽  
pp. 171-208
Author(s):  
Craig Berry
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Defined Contribution ◽  
Private Pensions ◽  
Tax Relief ◽  
Individual Welfare ◽  
Regulatory Regimes ◽  
The Uk

This chapter considers in depth some of the key elements of the new landscape of individualized pensions provision in the UK, reflecting in particular on some of the state’s emerging functions as facilitator, regulator, and provider of defined contribution pensions. It charts how the Pensions Commission’s vision for state-managed defined contribution was subtly marginalized, resulting in an approach which enables and indeed privileges privatized delivery of auto-enrolment, leaving private pensions provision caught between two radically different regulatory regimes, and rendering the state unable to act decisively to protect individual welfare. The chapter also discusses decumulation processes, including the Coalition government’s radical and highly destructive reforms to the annuities market, and the peculiar role played by pensions tax relief—providing a largely ineffective saving incentive, albeit at great expense.

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