TY - JOUR

T1 - Comparing Capitalisms: Debates, Controversies and Future Directions

AU - Wood, Geoffrey T.

AU - Allen, Matthew M. C.

PY - 2020/6

Y1 - 2020/6

N2 - Various strands of the comparative capitalisms (CC) literature agree that the advanced economies have liberalized in recent years, bringing with it rising income and wealth inequality and job insecurity; although these perspectives differ in important ways, there is much common ground between them to explain this heightened level of inequality and insecurity. Through reviewing contributions to three key CC perspectives since 2007/2008, we argue that they have tended to focus on developments in co-ordinated market economies, leading to a neglect of growing structural crises in liberal market economies, which have contributed to the UK and the USA entering uncharted socio-political waters. We extend recent work that emphasizes how variation between countries in labour-market institutions, different corporate forms and states’ fiscal policies help to explain income and wealth inequality to highlight future research agendas that seek to combine more systematically these institutional areas to explain social inequalities, workers’ experiences and socio-political crises within capitalist systems.

AB - Various strands of the comparative capitalisms (CC) literature agree that the advanced economies have liberalized in recent years, bringing with it rising income and wealth inequality and job insecurity; although these perspectives differ in important ways, there is much common ground between them to explain this heightened level of inequality and insecurity. Through reviewing contributions to three key CC perspectives since 2007/2008, we argue that they have tended to focus on developments in co-ordinated market economies, leading to a neglect of growing structural crises in liberal market economies, which have contributed to the UK and the USA entering uncharted socio-political waters. We extend recent work that emphasizes how variation between countries in labour-market institutions, different corporate forms and states’ fiscal policies help to explain income and wealth inequality to highlight future research agendas that seek to combine more systematically these institutional areas to explain social inequalities, workers’ experiences and socio-political crises within capitalist systems.

KW - comparative capitalism

KW - economic sociology

KW - inequality

U2 - 10.1177/0038038519895937

DO - 10.1177/0038038519895937

M3 - Article

VL - 54

SP - 482

EP - 500

JO - Sociology

JF - Sociology

SN - 0038-0385

IS - 3

ER -