New corporate elites and the erosion of the Keynesian social compact

Anne Daguerre
Additional contact information
Anne Daguerre: Middlesex University, UK

Work, Employment & Society, 2014, vol. 28, issue 2, 323-334

Abstract: The role of corporate elites – notably financial elites – has been at the forefront of political debates in Western capitalist societies since the start of the Great Recession in 2008. The major structural unbalances that had accumulated in Anglo-American economies over the last quarter of the 20th century played a key role in the build up to the financial crisis. Taking advantage of the mobility of capital, business elites promoted a model of shareholder capitalism actively backed up by the state. A process of elite competition took place: financial intermediaries acting on behalf of institutional investors marginalized the alliance between traditional managerial elites and workers that had been at the heart of the Keynesian compromise. This contribution outlines the consequences of the unravelling of the 20th century social pact for workers and their families. It concludes by outlining ‘what is to be done’ to forge a 21st century social pact.

Keywords: Anglo-American capitalism; corporate elites; financial intermediaries; Keynesian compromise; social pact (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://wes.sagepub.com/content/28/2/323.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:28:y:2014:i:2:p:323-334

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Work, Employment & Society from British Sociological Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().