Models of Capitalism in the New World Order: The UK Case

Abstract

In the debate over economic performance which has preoccupied UK policy makers for the last four decades, foreign ‘models' of more successful capitalisms elsewhere have been an important point of reference. Those models have been variously market-led (USA), state-led (Japan) or negotiated/consensual (Germany/Sweden). Of late the UK's own internal economic and social settlement has itself been offered as a viable model for once successful foreign economies now in competitive difficulties. The key features of these various models are analysed, and the UK's changing post-war position on the map of models is traced. The changing fortunes of these models are then related to developments in the global economy; and an assessment made of the adequacy (and desirability) of the kind of economic order now being canvassed in the UK by the present Labour Government.