Globalization and the Decline of Social Reform: Into the Twenty-First Century

Globalization is the coming of the 'triumph of capitalism,' the growing ascendancy of economics over politics, of corporate demands over public policy, of private over public interest. It represents the approaching completion of the capitalization of the world, carried out by 'self-generating capital' in the form of transnational corporations within an increasingly coherent transnational regulatory regime. Neo-liberal policies at the national level, argues the author, represent the policy side of globalization, the political requirements of global capital, the harmonization of the national with the global. They mark the transition between two eras, from a world of national corporations and nation states to a world of transnational corporations and supranational regulatory agencies. The author examines the postwar conditions that gave rise to the modern welfare state and the politics of social democracy throughout the industrial world. He traces the transformation of these conditions in the 1970s with the coming of a computer-based mode of production and the consequent necessity for global relations of production. In the face of global assertions of the rights of corporate private property, he makes the case that the world's subordinate classes and peoples will have to create global means of resistance.

Table of Contents:
" Acknowledgements Preface to the Second Edition Introduction 1. Social Reform and Capitalism The Origins of the Welfare State A Definition The Meaning of Social Reform 2. The Socialism of Social Democracy ""We Are All Socialists, Now"" Social Democracy 3. The Impact of Social Democracy and the Welfare State on Social Inequality Inequality Redistribution Social Citizenship and Decommodification 4. The Global Economy and the Decline of Social Reform The Coming of the Global Economy Revolution in the Means of Production The Global Era The Decline of Social Reform 5. Neo-Liberal Policies and Their Rationale Promotion of the Primacy of Private Property Rights The Market as Panacea Free Economic Zones: Model for the Global Economy Deregulation of the Economy The Privatization of Public Corporations ""Popular Capitalism"" and Support for Privatization Transformation of the Tax Structure Reduction of the National Debt The Downsizing of Government The Restructuring of Local Government Dismantling the Welfare State The Promotion of Charities Circumscription of Civil Liberties/Human Rights Circumscription of Trade Union Powers Preparing for the Consequences: The Growth of Prison Facilities Restrictions to Democracy 6. The Era of the ""Triumph of Capitalism"" The Meaning of the ""Triumph"" The Global System Political Dilemmas The Possibilities The Coming Tyranny 7. Globalization as the Second Bourgeois Revolution The Restructuring of Economic Units The ""State"" and ""Civil Society"" at the Global Level The Decline of Liberal Democracy Securing the Economic Unit Transformation of Property Relations The Decline of National Cultural Identity 8. A Critique of the Sceptics Globalization as Mere Rhetoric Nothing New-Plus Ca Change... Technological Revolution The Transnational Corporation and the Global Market Global Governance Role of the National State: ""Convergence"" vs. ""State Capacity"" The North-South Divide, or the Core and Periphery 9. The Question of Resistance and Alternatives Notes Index "

About the Author :
Gary Teeple is Professor of Sociology at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia.

Review :
"...argued with impressive cogency and authority... extraordinarily well documented. Peter Eglin, Canadian Public Policy;...has already taken its well deserved place as a required text in numerous undergraduate courses. Indeed, it has already infiltrated a number of less academic, more transformative working-class circles. James R. Sacouman, Labour/Le Travail"