Achieving Sustainable and Inclusive Growth: A New Social Structure for Decent Work

Are we inevitably destined for a future of rising inequality and, in the absence of unsustainable financialized growth, secular stagnation? Or is it possible to fundamentally reform contemporary capitalism, shifting it away from neoliberalism and towards a social capitalism that can deliver sustainable and inclusive growth? This chapter provides a positive answer to the second of the two questions just raised. It begins with a brief review of the major pathologies that afflict contemporary capitalism. In the process, it identifies the labour market as a critical ‘nexus’ of many of these ills – and reform of labour market institutions as being perhaps the single most important (if not, by any means, the only) structural change required in order to transform capitalism so that it better serves the public purpose. A detailed discussion of various policy initiatives follows, that are designed to both improve the bargaining position of employed workers and undergird precarious employment. The political economy of reform is also discussed, with a view to demonstrating that the reforms required to move society in the direction of social capitalism are possible.