Golden Ages and welfare alchemists

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Pinker
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
New Right ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Classical Political Economy ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Welfare Pluralism

In this chapter, Robert Pinker discusses the idea of ‘Golden Age’ theories in social policy thought and what he calls ‘welfare alchemists’ whose visions these theories encapsulate. According to Pinker, these grand theories are in reality ideologies and can be collectivist or individualist in origin. Regardless of their origins, however, they fail to address the need for the compromises between values which are reached in pluralist and democratic social contexts. Pinker also provides an overview of the influence of classical political economy and the New Right on British social policies under different Conservative governments and goes on to describe socialism as a repository of Golden Age theorizing, along with the concept of community in relation to welfare pluralism. Finally, he examines the institutions of Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft as well as the traditions of collectivism and individualism, arguing that they should not continue to coexist in democratic societies.

Introduction Themed Section on Political Economy and Social Policy

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Holden ◽  
Rob Sykes
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Policy Community ◽  
Political Economy Approach ◽  
Area Of Study

This themed section arose partly as a response to the debate, which has been taking place within the academic social policy community recently, about the nature and future of social policy as an area of study. It includes contributions from those working within Politics departments, both in Britain and abroad, as well as from those working within more specific Social Policy contexts. There are many reasons why the Political Economy approach to social policy is particularly appropriate today. Three important reasons are the increasing importance of processes of ‘globalisation’, the ever more explicit linking of economic and social policies by governments, and the entry of new actors such as for-profit corporations into the domain of social policy.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Innes ◽  
Michael J. Braddick
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Early Modern History ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Political Economy ◽  
Later Phase

The Introduction offers a brief overview of Paul Slack’s contribution to early modern history, distinguishing between an earlier phase concerned with social policy and the ideas which informed it, and a later phase concerned with the history of political economy, and particularly the shifting discourse of happiness which, he argued, informed it. It then explores recent interest in the history of emotions, distinguishing a variety of approaches to that subject. Reviewing three broad approaches taken by the contributors to the volume, it goes on to suggest that the history of emotions is most stimulating when seen as a focal point for different kinds of history rather than as a discrete subject of enquiry. A further implication is that a variety of forms of expertise need to be brought to bear.

scholarly journals Silent Non-Exit and Broken Voice. Early Postcommunist Social Policies as Protest-Preempting Strategies

Südosteuropa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-174
Author(s):  
Pieter Vanhuysse
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Political Sociology ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Competing Interest ◽  
Distributive Conflict

Abstract This essay contributes to the development of an analytical political sociology examination of postcommunist policy pathways and applies such an analysis in a reinterpretation of the social policy pathways taken by Hungary and Poland. During the critical historical juncture of the early 1990s, governments in these new democracies used social policies to proactively create new labor market outsiders (rather than merely accommodate or deal with existing outsiders) in an effort to stifle disruptive repertoires of political voice. Microcollective action theory helps to elucidate how the break-up of hitherto relatively homogeneous clusters of threatened workers into newly competing interest groups shaped the nature of distributive conflict in the formative first decade of these new democracies. In this light, we see how the analytical political sociology of postcommunist social policy can advance and modify current, predominantly Western-oriented theories of insider/outsider conflict and welfare retrenchment policy, and can inform future debates about emerging social policy biases in Eastern Europe.

Consumers Preferences, Subsistence and Real Wage

1993 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Real Wage ◽  
Consumer Preference ◽  
Sharp Contrast ◽  
Index Number ◽  
Neoclassical Theory ◽  
The Real ◽  
Individual Consumer ◽  
Classical Political Economy

In classical political economy, the real wage derives its reality from its association with a given set of products that provides for the subsistence of workers through time. In neoclassical theory the connection between the real wage and a given set of products is broken, because the restriction of workers’ consumption to a particular set of products conflicts with the idea of individual consumer preference. Thus, the ‘reality’ of the real wage in neoclassical theory is grounded differently, in a particular standard of value that can be called an index number standard. The difficulties involved with this construction raise questions about the theoretical adequacy of the notion of real wage itself. In particular, this leads to a conclusion that stands in sharp contrast to the empiricist proclamations of neoclassical theory.

scholarly journals Critical Bifocality and Circuits of Privilege: Expanding Critical Ethnographic Theory and Design

2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lois Weis ◽  
Michelle Fine
Keyword(s):  
Structural Dynamics ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Social Policies

In this article, Lois Weis and Michelle Fine introduce critical bifocality as a way to render visible the relations between groups to structures of power, to social policies, to history, and to large sociopolitical formations. In this collaboration, the authors draw upon ethnographic examples highlighting the macro-level structural dynamics related to globalization and neoliberalism. The authors focus on the ways in which broad-based economic and social contexts set the stage for day-to-day actions and decisions among privileged and nonprivileged parents and students in relation to schooling. Weis and Fine suggest that critical bifocality enables us to consider how researchers might account empirically for global, national, and local transformations as insinuated, embodied, and resisted by youth and adults trying to make sense of current educational and economic possibilities in massively shifting contexts.

The Right to Income

1993 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Baker
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Neoclassical Economics ◽  
Labor Theory ◽  
Classical Political Economy ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right ◽  
Similar Notion

This paper argues for a right to income based on a conception of the integrity of the individual. It first justifies the argument through the notion of social need developed by Hegel, contrasting that idea with the notion of subsistence in classical political economy and of needs and wants in the neoclassical economics. It then reexamines Locke’s labor theory of property and argues that its intuitive strength actually relies on a similar notion of individual integrity, not on labor pre se. The paper concludes by applying this notion of rightful acquisition of property to the situation of production by capital and explores some policy implications of a right to income.

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