SO478 - week 19
« Back to SO478These are my notes from February 27 for SO478 at the London School of Economics for the 2017-2018 school year. I took this module as part of the one-year Inequalities and Social Science MSc program.
The usual disclaimer: all notes are my personal impressions and do not necessarily reflect the view of the lecturer.
Capitalism, technology and inequality 2
Lecture
VoC, focus on advanced economies
- northern european economies much more organised for stronger labour and more coordination (going back a long way)
- just a thought: he doesnt really question skill-based allocation? kinda just takes it for granted, never critical
- he’s acknowledging that democracy hasnt been increasing redistribution
- in fordism, labour market produced egalitarian outcomes
- in knowledge economy less egalitarian, bifurcation
- so just as political system becomes more crucial for providing equality, it has become less capable
- soskice says that one reason for this:
- people losing out the most not a majority
- i dont really agree with this, i think we have to look at problems with the implementation of electoral systems literally everywhere
- interesting that immigrant populist backlash tends to be along nationnal lines: why??
Seminar
(my bit, explaining the rise of far-right populism)
- here i’m building on work by dani rodrik and by nancy fraser
- in a word, i would say the answer is neoliberalism. in two different senses
- neoliberal policy over the last four decades
- specifically, favouring capital over labour, resulting in increased inequality and worsening conditions for many at the bottom
- combined with concurrent technological development and opening up the flow of goods through globalisation
- low union density
- at the same time, there’s been this shift in the political landscape which i would call the failure of centrist politics
- where the traditionally left parties have moved towards the centre
- most significantly in the US with the Democratic Party (which was never very left-wing to begin with, tbh)
- but here in the UK as well, despite the Labour party’s grounding in the labour movement
- during the Blair years and even more in the Brown years of New Labour
- the result was that these left parties gave up ground on economic issues
- failed to challenge neoliberal policy, completely bought into the idea that there is no alternative
- and so if they couldnt really compete on economic issues with the right, they ended up differing on cultural issues
- i would say this is worse in the US than in the UK, and maybe that’s why
- basically the democratic party offered so little
- esp with clinton: classic liberal offer of everything is mostly fine just need to be nicer
- distinguish from left-wing populism, which is what we’ve seen in latin america (rodrik)
- neoliberal policy over the last four decades
- branko milanovic inequality possibility frontier
- as more is produced due to technological development
- industrial revolution -> can produce so much more thus inequality goes up (since more is possible)