Buying time : the delayed crisis of democratic capitalism / Wolfgang Streeck ; translated by Patrick Camiller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Streeck, Wolfgang, 1946- author.

Contributor:

Camiller, Patrick, translator.

Standardized Title:

Gekaufte Zeit. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Capitalism.

Neoliberalism.

Democracy--Economic aspects.

Democracy.

Economic policy.

Financial crises.

Physical Description:

xviii, 220 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

English-language edition.

Place of Publication:

London ; Brooklyn, NY : Verso, 2014.

Summary:

"The financial crisis keeps us on edge and creates a diffuse sense of helplessness. Well-nigh unfathomable problems lead to measures that seem like emergency operations on the open heart of the Western world, performed with no knowledge of the patient's clinical history. The gravity of the situation is matched by the paucity of our understanding of it, and of how it came about in the first place. In this book, compiled from his Adorno Lectures given in Frankfurt, Wolfgang Streeck lays bare the roots of the present financial, fiscal and economic crisis, seeing it as part of the long neoliberal transformation of postwar capitalism that began in the 1970s. Linking up with the crisis theories of that decade, he analyses the subsequent tensions and conflicts involving states, governments, voters and capitalist interests--a process in which the defining focus of the European state system has shifted from taxation through debt to budgetary "consolidation." The book then ends by exploring the prospects for a restoration of social and economic stability. Buying Time is a model of enlightenment. It shows that something deeply disturbing underlies the current situation: a metamorphosis of the whole relationship between democracy and capitalism"-- Provided by publisher.

"The financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 still has the world on tenterhooks. The gravity of the situation is matched by a general paucity of understanding about what is happening and how it started. In this book, based on his 2012 Adorno Lectures given in Frankfurt, Wolfgang Streeck places the crisis in the context of the long neoliberal transformation of postwar capitalism that began in the 1970s. He analyses the subsequent tensions and conflicts involving states, governments, voters and capitalist interests, as expressed in inflation, public debt, and rising private indebtedness. Streeck traces the transformation of the tax state into a debt state, and from there into the consolidation state of today. At the centre of the analysis is the changing relationship between capitalism and democracy, in Europe and elsewhere, and the advancing immunization of the former against the latter"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 From Legitimation Crisis to Fiscal Crisis 1

A new type of crisis 6

Two surprises for crisis theory 10

The other legitimation crisis and the end of the postwar peace 20

The long turn: from postwar capitalism to neoliberalism 26

Buying time 32

2 Neoliberal Reform: From Tax State to Debt State 47

Financial crisis: a failure of democracy? 47

Capitalism and democracy in the neoliberal revolution 51

Excursus: capitalism and democracy 55

Starving the beast! 63

The crisis of the tax state 70

From tax state to debt state 72

Debt state and distribution 76

The politics of the debt state 79

Debt politics as international financial diplomacy 90

3 The Politics of the Consolidation State: Neoliberalism in Europe 97

Integration and liberalization 97

The European Union as a liberalization machine 103

Institutional change: from Keynes to Hayek 110

The consolidation state as a European multilevel regime 112

Fiscal consolidation as a remodelling of the state 117

Growth: back to the future 126

Excursus on regional growth programmes 134

On the strategic capacity of the European consolidation state 147

Resistance within the international consolidation state 156

4 Looking Ahead 165

What now? 165

Capitalism or democracy 172

The euro as a frivolous experiment 174

Democracy in Euroland? 177

In praise of devaluation 181

For a European Bretton Woods 185

Gaining time 188.

Notes:

"First published as Gekaufte Zeit, Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin, 2013."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781781685495

1781685495

9781781685488

1781685487

OCLC:

865493399

Online:

Cover image