Diminishing Returns : The New Politics of Growth and Stagnation

Abstract

Over fifty years ago Andrew Shonfeld wrote a book, Modern Capitalism, which initiated a new field of inquiry about ‘comparative capitalism.’ His focus was the politics of the mixed economy and its national variants. At the basis of that politics was not just a concern with ‘who gets what’ in a static sense, but also how the various hybrid forms of capitalism were able to address problems of accumulation and growth more effectively than in previous phases of capitalist development. Fifty plus years later, at the end of the neoliberal era, modern capitalism faces problems far different from Shonfeld’s period. Growth has slowed down considerably, generating a host of new problems, from financial instability to the collapse of mainstream parties. What happens when growth – the main mechanism of capitalist legitimation – is harder to come by and less broadly shared? And how should we think about capitalist diversity in the context of global stagnation? In this volume we address these questions by bringing together a number of comparative and international political economists with expertise in different countries and regions. The chapters are inspired by a common theoretical framework about ‘Growth Models,’ articulated in the introduction, and contribute to develop it further, going beyond the methodological nationalism of much comparative research. The outcome is a new theoretical perspective to help social scientists, policymakers, and opinion makers understand the politics of growth and stagnation, and a set of state of the art empirical analyses at the country, regional, and global level.