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ABSTRACTS
PROKLA 136 Tobias Wölfle, Oliver Schöller: "Social Control in flexible Capitalism – The municipal active employment policy. Under the term "Hilfe zur Arbeit" (aid for work) the federal law of social welfare subsumes all kinds of labour disciplining instruments. First, the paper shows the historical connection of welfare and labour disciplining mechanisms in the context of different periods within capitalist development. In a second step, against the background of historical experiences, we will analyse the trends of "Hilfe zur Arbeit" during the past two decades. It will be shown that by the rise of unemployment, the impact of labour disciplining aspects of "Hilfe zur Arbeit" has increased both on the federal and on the municipal level. For this reason the leverage of the liberal paradigm would take place even in the core of social rights. Björn Böhning, Kai Burmeister: Social cuts on behalf of generation justice? During recent years a debate about violated justice between the generations has become a popular issue in the political discussion in almost all western societies. The often used label "generation justice" is used as a justification for a deconstruction of elements of social policy, especially in the fields of health insurance and public pensions. The main argument is due to a changing demographic structure, in which social systems are no longer able to guarantee high standard social services. This essay tries to critically asses the current debate about intergenerational justice and to focus at first on improved economic foundation for transfers between the different generations. In a second step it is asked, if generation justice is a relevant topic for young people in their ordinary lives. In a final third step the essay will try to give a solid answer to the demographic change, which can be the foundation for a new contract between younger and older people. Heiner Ganßmann: Rhenish vs. Atlantic Welfare States: Stable Contrasts or Dwindling Differences? One of the main questions in recent debates on the future of welfare states has been whether globalization or structural economic change will lead to convergence. To answer that question, the liberal welfare state of the United States and the conservative continental European welfare states are related to differences in the respective capitalist economies, using Soskice´s distinction of liberal and coordinated market economies. Welfare states are described in terms of their performance in three fields: protection against labor market risks, protection against poverty and reduction of income inequalities. Performance differences remain impressive and can be summarily ascribed to the continuing dominant reliance of US capitalism on the threat of immiseration to induce work performance. While continental European production regimes typically use more positive work incentives, some pressures in European economies, especially the relentless push for income redistribution in favor of the rich and the weakness of unions, increase the probability of convergence. Michael B. Katz: The American Welfare State: Structure and Trends. The vast and complicated welfare state of the USA, which is not usefully understood as either public or private, is presented. Its changing structure is a a result of three forces that may be called dependence, devolution, and markets. Those changes have profound implications for citizenship and democracy in the USA. Jürgen Hoffmann: Germany– a "bazaar - economy"? Globalization, "global sourcing" and "Model Germany". A prominent current discourse on German economy sees Germany - due to outsourcing and global sourcing strategies – becoming more and more a "bazaar - economy", in which the share of German based added value of products is decreasing rapidly. The reasons are seen in high labour costs and "sclerotic" labour markets under pressure of globalised markets – therefore neoliberal policies seem to be the only remedy against the so-called "German disease". These arguments are qualified by discussing the globalisation hypothesis, analysing the contradictions of outsourcing processes and putting the stress upon factors of localisation and the dominant role of regions in globalised markets. Instead of speaking of a "bazaar – economy", the authors’ identifies a process of re-allocation of production in internationalised markets and policies of strengthening the existing high level of regional infrastructures would underpin the high productive "Rhineland capitalism", while neoliberal policies tend to destroy its comparative advantages. The same applies to microeconomic actions of capital reducing investments in favour of short term high profits abroad and thus initiating a vicious circle: the loss of investment would undermine the high productive regional networks as a pillar of "high quality – high qualification – high wage" – production in Germany and thus investment would become less attractive. Tobias Pieper: The decentralised camp-system for Refugees - a hinge between the regular and the irregular labour market. It's possible to see the accommodation of estimated 600.000 refugees in Germany as a decentralised camp-system. Coming from a definition of this system, the historical conditions of emergence are described as a willing social devaluation and a way to supply workforce. So the economical embedding and function of the decentralised camp-system will be analysed. Here for the ethnical layers of the labour market are described in their regular and irregular segments. As a result the decentralized camp-system can be seen as embedded in the present relations of production as reservoir of regular workers in the Bundesländern of high prosperity. At the same time it works as a hinge to the irregular segments of the ethnically layered labour market. At the end the ideological function of the refugee as prototype of the neoliberal worker will be discussed Hartwig Berger: Biofuel and the shortcoming of modern mobility. The article discusses the future of mobility in the light of energy resources. Fossil fuel will not be available for a long time - not to mention its growing environmental and political conflicts. In analysing the potential of biofuel it is argued that the high demands of modern mobility can hardly be fulfilled in the future. Furthermore, the change into using biofuel will probably lead to increasing conflicts between the fuel market and the food market, as well as to conflicts with regional agricultural networks in the third world. Petrol imperialism might be replaced by bio imperialism. Therefore, mobility on a solar base pursues a double strategy of raising efficiency on the one hand and strongly reducing mobility itself on the other. Stephan Lessenich: Here Comes Dr. Feelgood: Gøsta Esping-Andersen and the New Architecture of the Welfare State. Gøsta Esping-Andersen is the top star not only of contemporary comparative welfare state research but of European social democrats struggling for welfare state reform as well. The article discusses Esping-Andersen’s vision of a "new welfare state" and points out why finally even German social democracy discovered the sex appeal of his plea for "investing in women and children". Michael Heinrich: Agenda 2010 and Hartz IV - From Red-Green Neoliberalism to Protest. With the so called Hartz IV law an eminent transformation of german unemployment support is going on. A significant re-distribution from bottom to top, the impoverishment of those who are for a longer time unemployed and because the unemployed are forced to accept any job an important change in the position of the trade unions will take place. As a consequence the Social Democrats loss dramatically support among the voters. Zu den AutorInnen Hartwig Berger ist Sozialwissenschaftler und Sprecher der Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Energie von Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Björn Böhning studiert Politikwissenschaft und ist Bundesvorsitzender der Jusos Kai Burmeister ist Volkswirt in Lübeck Heiner Ganßmann lehrt Soziologie an der FU Berlin Jürgen Hoffmann lehrt Politikwissenchaft an der Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Politik in Hamburg Michael Heinrich ist Politikwissenschaftler in Berlin und Mitglied der PROKLA-Redaktion Michael B. Katz lehrt Geschichte an der University of Pennsylvannia Stephan Lessenich lehrt Soziologie und Sozialpolitik an der Universität Göttingen Tobias Pieper ist Psychologe und Politikwissenschaftler in Berlin Oliver Schoeller ist Sozialwissenschaftler und arbeitet am Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin Tobias Wölfle studiert Sozialwissenschaften an der Humboldt Universität Berlin |