Print Price: $34.50

Format:
Hardback
304 pp.
6.125" x 9.25"

ISBN-13:
9780190064112

Publication date:
October 2019

Imprint: OUP US

Social Democratic Capitalism

Lane Kenworthy

What configuration of institutions and policies is most conducive to human flourishing? The historical and comparative evidence suggests that the answer is social democratic capitalism - a democratic political system, a capitalist economy, good elementary and secondary schooling, a big welfare state, pro-employment public services, and moderate regulation of product and labor markets.

In Social Democratic Capitalism, Lane Kenworthy shows that this system improves living standards for the least well-off, enhances economic security, and boosts equality of opportunity. And it does so without sacrificing other things we want in a good society, from liberty to economic growth to health and happiness. Its chief practitioners have been the Nordic nations. The Nordics have gone farther than other rich democratic countries in coupling a big welfare state with public services that promote high employment and modest product and labor-market regulations. Many believe this system isn't transferable beyond Scandinavia, but Kenworthy shows that social democratic capitalism and its successes can be replicated in other affluent nations, including the United States.

Today, the U.S. lags behind other countries in economic security, opportunity, and shared prosperity. If the U.S. were to expand its existing social programs and add some additional ones, many ordinary Americans would have better lives. Kenworthy argues that, despite formidable political obstacles, the U.S. is likely to move toward social democratic capitalism in coming decades. As a country gets richer, he explains, it becomes more willing to spend more in order to safeguard against risk and enhance fairness. With social democratic capitalism as his blueprint, he lays out a detailed policy agenda that could alleviate many of America's problems.

Readership : Policy makers and advisors, social science professors and students (graduate and undergraduate).

Reviews

• "Why can't America have the sort of capitalism that works so well in Scandinavia? Because we are different? Because it wouldn't work here? Think again, and look hard at the evidence that Kenworthy has so persuasively assembled in Social Democratic Capitalism."
  
  --Angus Deaton, Princeton University, and Winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics
  
  
• "Kenworthy provides a clear-headed assessment of mountains of evidence, but also a passionate insistence that social democratic capitalism can improve people's lives. This is first-rate social science that deserves a broad public audience."
  
  --Larry M. Bartels, Vanderbilt University
  
  
• "This terrific book ably examines the strengths and transportability of the social democratic model. Like all of Kenworthy's work, Social Democratic Capitalism is clearly written, crisply argued, and mindful of alternative interpretations of the evidence and prominent counter-claims."
  
  --Jacob Hacker, Yale University