Can the European welfare state survive globalization? Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands in comparative perspective. CES Working Paper Series in European Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, 1998

Hirst, Paul. (1998) Can the European welfare state survive globalization? Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands in comparative perspective. CES Working Paper Series in European Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, 1998.

Abstract

In no area is increased openness to international capital movements and trade seen in more apocalyptic terms than in the case of social welfare. For example, the political theorist John Gray regards the demise of the welfare state as a direct effect of globalization: “To imagine that the social market economies of the past can renew themselves intact under the forces of downwards harmonization is the most dangerous of the many illusions associated with the global market. Instead social market systems are being compelled progressively to dismantle themselves, so that they can compete on more equal terms with economies in which environmental, social and labour costs are lowest.” (1)