scholarly journals Productivity, Wages, Profits, and Exchange Rates in an Era of Globalization

2002 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-81
Author(s):  
HARTMUT ELSENHANS

ABSTRACT Worldwide devaluation races lead to the globalization of rent instead of profit and autonomy of civil society. This specific pattern of today’s globalization goes with serious underconsumptionist tendencies as self-sufficiency in wage goods production is achieved in economies with a very low marginal product of labour in agriculture and structural unemployment which disempowers all labour. The 19th century likewise intensive globalization was characterized by full employment tendencies, rising real wages and an expansion of the welfare state. A return to such a convoy model of globalization is possible through marginality reducing development policies for uplifting the poor in the South.

Author(s):  
Jordanna Bailkin

This chapter asks how refugee camps transformed people as well as spaces, altering the identities of the individuals and communities who lived in and near them. It considers how camps forged and fractured economic, religious, and ethnic identities, constructing different kinds of unity and disunity. Camps had unpredictable effects on how refugees and Britons thought of themselves, and how they saw their relationship to upward and downward mobility. As the impoverished Briton emerged more clearly in the imagination of the welfare state, the refugee was his constant companion and critic. The state struggled to determine whether refugees required the same care as the poor, or if they warranted their own structures of aid.


Rural History ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Robin

The welfare state emerged in 1948 when the National Assistance Act finally abolished the New Poor Law Forty-two years later, as politicians and bureaucrats struggle to keep increasing expenditure within bounds, the existence of the welfare state in its present form is under threat. Just over 150 years ago, the Old Poor Law was presenting parish ratepayers with a similar problem of rising costs, leading in 1834 to a fundamental reorganisation into the New Poor Law It may therefore be profitable to see how effective in practice the New Poor Law was when it replaced a system widely regarded as profligate, and to consider the extent to which benefits payable through the welfare state were available a hundred years or more ago.This study examines in detail how the New Poor Law, and other forms of relief, affected the whole population of the rural parish of Colyton, in south Devonshire, during the thirty years from 1851 to 1881. It will first describe the sources from which a poor person in Colyton in the mid nineteenth century could look for relief; next discuss how widespread poverty was and who the poor were; then look at what kinds of relief were available, under what conditions; and finally assess the comparative importance to the poor of the different agencies providing assistance.


1980 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 457-470
Author(s):  
John Pinder

THE 1950s WERE A WONDERFUL DECADE FOR APPLIED SOCIAL science: for the belief that reason addressed to economic and social problems can improve the human condition. Compare the 1950s with the 1930s and ask how much of the improvement was due to Keynes and Beveridge. It is inevitable that a generation of debunkers should follow whose answer would be ‘not much’. But that would have seemed a strange conclusion in the 1950s; and the view of the 1950s was surely right. We had full employment in place of 10 per cent unemployment in the 1920s and nearly 15 per cent in the 1930s; and after the first years of post-war reconstruction, it was reasonable to attribute this to Keynesian demand management. We had a safety net through which relatively few fell into poverty; and this was Beveridge's social security and the welfare state.


Author(s):  
Toni Pierenkemper ◽  
Klaus F. Zimmermann

AbstractThis paper attempts to trace the construction of the standard employment contract in Germany from the beginning of the 19th century onwards. In 20th century Germany, it was reinforced alongside with the consolidation of the welfare state and developed into the modern concept of the standard employment contract. Due to globalization forces and dynamics of capitalist market economies, the standard employment contract has turned into an obstacle in the way of modern economy’s progress. The future might be determined by increasing work flexibility, rising working hours, falling income and increasing unemployment rates, rendering the standard employment contract anachronistic and obsolete.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 227
Author(s):  
Azwar Azwar Azwar ◽  
Emeraldy Chatra ◽  
Zuldesni Zuldesni

Poverty is one of the social problems that the government can never completely solve. As a result, other, more significant social issues arise and cause social vulnerability, such as conflict and crime. As a province that is experiencing rapid growth in the last ten years, the West Sumatra find difficulty to overcome the number of poor people in several districts and cities.  The research outcomes are the models and forms of social policy made by West Sumatra regencies and cities governments in improving the welfare of poor communities. It is also covering the constraints or obstacles to the implementation of social policy and the selection of welfare state models for the poor in some districts and municipalities of West Sumatra. This research is conducted qualitatively with a sociological approach that uses social perspective on searching and explaining social facts that happened to needy groups. Based on research conducted that the social policy model adopted by the government in responding to social problems in the districts and cities of West Sumatra reflects the welfare state model given to the poor. There is a strong relationship between the welfare state model and the form of social policy made by the government.


Author(s):  
George Kent

This chapter challenges the uncritical pursuit of food self-sufficiency that has been rationalized as increasing the state’s preparedness against shipping disruption. It argues that this effort might increase food’s cost, and reiterates the point that local food is not necessarily fair as low-income consumers could be sidelined in the push for food localization. In contrast to the enthusiasm for promoting agriculture and local food production in the state, relatively little has been done in addressing food insecurity of the poor, especially by the state government. Food democracy needs to consider food security for all—particularly the poor and the marginalized.


Author(s):  
Frank Stricker

Main arguments are discussed and key concepts are defined to help readers later on and to preview the book’s effort to evaluate mainstream paradigms, one of which is that 4 percent unemployment is full employment. Flaws in the idea of frictional unemployment are sketched. This chapter stresses the importance of discouraged workers and other jobless people outside the labor force. Truly full employment requires more jobs than people needing jobs, short periods for finding work, and real wages rising 2 percent per year. These conditions have been rare. The final argument is that neoliberalism and unregulated markets cannot bring full employment. Government job programs are essential.


Author(s):  
Philip Manow

Chapter 4 argues that in the three high-growth postwar decades, the welfare state facilitated corporatist cooperation between labor and capital, specifically in the form of wage coordination, thereby avoiding inflation in periods of (almost) full employment. The period of high growth and full employment allowed, in turn, welfare state expansion which was always supported by a grand coalition of Christian and Social Democrats. The chapter reconstructs in more detail how industrial conflict in the metalworking sector—both in the north of Germany, in the shipyards, and in the south of Germany, in the automobile industry—over social rights instead of wages laid the ground for wage coordination (and moderation) German style. It also explains how the welfare state helped unions and employers’ associations to “police the bargain,” to stabilize an inherently unstable arrangement between capital and labor.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document