Papers by Kevin Farnsworth
Routledge eBooks, Feb 17, 2015
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
Warren Buffet, then the third wealthiest individual in the world according to Forbes Magazine,1 w... more Warren Buffet, then the third wealthiest individual in the world according to Forbes Magazine,1 with an estimated wealth of $47 billion, gave an interview to the New York Times in 2010 where he stated the following: Just over two years ago, in September 2008, our country faced an economic meltdown … One of Wall Street’s giant investment banks had gone bankrupt … A.I.G., the world’s most famous insurer, was at death’s door. Indeed, all of corporate America’s dominoes were lined up, ready to topple at lightning speed: 300 million Americans were in the domino line as well. Well, Uncle Sam, you delivered … I would like to commend a few of your troops. In the darkest of days, Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner and Sheila Bair grasped the gravity of the situation and acted with courage and dispatch. (Buffet, 2010) The size of ‘Uncle Sam’s’ intervention in 2010 was equivalent to around 85 per cent of total US gross domestic product (GDP). Although some of the interventions by the US and other govern?ments did not require upfront funding, and although the costs of some measures will be recouped in time, the economic crisis that hit most countries in some way swiftly put paid to the myth — propagated during the previous neoliberal phase of capitalism — that businesses thrive best with minimal state involvement or interference.
Chapter 4 focused on broad and largely general corporate welfare measures. This chapter examines,... more Chapter 4 focused on broad and largely general corporate welfare measures. This chapter examines, in more detail, state provision that benefits individual firms and specific sectors of the economy by, focusing on targeted corporate subsidies and direct company benefits. It draws primarily on WTO data on corporate subsidies that, although patchy, provides a useful glimpse into the range of state support provided to businesses in a number of countries. The first section presents an analysis of the WTO returns for 2006 of seven different countries — the US, the UK, Sweden, France, Germany, Canada and Japan — in order to examine the most important and costliest subsidies provided by these nations and to reveal the key sectors that benefit most from subsidies. The second section examines in detail the full WTO return for one country, the US. This provides fuller evidence of the range of subsidies that are distributed to different sectors. The third section builds on these and other data in order to describe in more detail the kinds of support measures provided by governments to different sectors. The final section looks beyond general business sectors by detailing specific forms of support that accrue to six case-study firms.
Journal of European Social Policy, Feb 1, 2005
Capitalists are today better organized and have stronger voices at the international level than e... more Capitalists are today better organized and have stronger voices at the international level than ever before. Several factors have been at work here. First, globalization and rationalization have encouraged firms and organized business to place more of their resources into lobbying at the supranational level in order to steer policy making towards their own agendas. They have, as a result, become far better organized and coordinated at the supranational level (Coen, 1997; Sklair, 2001). Europeanization has meant for business that lobbying only at the national level risks unfavourable policy outcomes being introduced internationally. As a result, business lobbying at the EU level has expanded greatly; by the late 1990s, over 200 large corporations and around 500 corporate lobby groups had established bases in Brussels (Balanya et al., 2000: 3; Coen, 1998; 78). Second, there is some evidence of the formation of common ideological and class positions between governments, international governmental organizations (IGOs) and international capital which, according to Sklair (2001), has spawned the development of an ideologically united, transnational, capitalist class that is steering debate within emerging global political institutions. Whether or not it is accurate to talk about such a class, it is certainly the case that shared ideological positions, based on a loose neo-liberal framework, have played a key part in globalization processes (Farnsworth, 2004: Ch 2). Third, as capital mobility has increased, so decisionmakers have been increasingly eager to find out, through exchanges with corporate ‘representatives’ of mobile capital in particular, business preferences and needs. In contrast to the familiar portrayal of corporations as organizations that have to lobby hard in order to make their demands heard by policymakers, governmental organizations frequently seek to establish closer links with business in order to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas and to learn how they might create more attractive investment environments and how they might smooth the introduction of new policies. Even for IGOs, getting the backing of powerful business interests can be crucial to winning the support of member states. Business leaders who are supportive of proposals put forward by international governmental bodies can be useful proponents of ideas and arguments. This is clear from the following extract, by Keith Richardson, Secretary General of the European Round Table (ERT) from 1988 to 1998. It illustrates the importance of business to the work of the Commission leading up to and following the introduction of the Single European Act (SEA) during the mid1980s:
Journal of Social Policy, Jun 26, 2006
Critical Social Policy, Nov 1, 2006
Business people, business associations and individual firms have been enlisted in various ways by... more Business people, business associations and individual firms have been enlisted in various ways by New Labour as part of their strategy to identify and resolve a number of problems within the British welfare state. Business has been important to New Labour’s welfare strategies in at least three ways. First, New Labour has endeavoured to gear social policy more towards the needs of the profit making sector in the hope that this would increase competitiveness and help it to expand welfare expenditure in future. Second, by increasing the inputs of business people and firms into social policy, the government hoped to rescue services from their inefficient public sector strait-jackets. Third, the government has looked to private firms as important new sources of financing for welfare infrastructure. However, this embedding of business culture, business people and private enterprise into social policy has produced few real benefits to services, their employees or their users. This paper examines and evaluates New Labour’s strategy of embedding business into social policy in order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of welfare services.
Policy Studies, Mar 1, 1998
... Niskanen, 1971; Skocpol, 1985), and the political mobilisation - as well as the fear of the p... more ... Niskanen, 1971; Skocpol, 1985), and the political mobilisation - as well as the fear of the political mobilisation - of labour (Castles, 1985; Korpi, 1983; Navarro, 1989 ... Kevin Farnsworth, School of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY Tel: 01225 826826 ext. ...
Journal of Social Policy, Jul 14, 2017
Social Policy and Society, Dec 17, 2020
This article is an attempt to take stock and critically reflect on the UK’s decade of austerity a... more This article is an attempt to take stock and critically reflect on the UK’s decade of austerity and social policy hostility over the past decade. It distinguishes between economic and political austerity and digs deeper into the data on expenditure in order to examine the impact of austerity on British public expenditure and politics. It argues that the decade of austerity was a hostile one for British social policy which not only undermined the financial base of key parts of the welfare state, it reshaped it and redefined its priorities, setting in train a series of subsequent events that would further change, not just British social policies, but British economics, polity and politics. And, as subsequent crises – notably Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic – testify, crisis events tend to be linked, and each one shapes and influences the ability of the state to respond to the next.
Journal of Social Policy, Nov 19, 2012
Bristol University Press eBooks, Aug 13, 2017
ABSTRACT The history of welfare states is marked by divisions between capital and labour and thes... more ABSTRACT The history of welfare states is marked by divisions between capital and labour and these divisions are replicated at the international level. At the heart of these divisions is enduring class interests which accord different priorities to social and economic factors. That these divisions exist is neither surprising, nor necessarily a problem; the problem, this paper argues, is the increasingly high priority given to business interests by ever more powerful international governmental organisations. This paper presents an analysis of power in the global economy before investigating the social policy preferences of key international capital and labour organisations. It argues that international class mobilisation has failed to produce very much of a compromise on the part of capital, and that, if anything, international social policy discourse is today even closer to business than it has ever been.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
The following chapters examine comparative data on the size of corporate and social welfare in a ... more The following chapters examine comparative data on the size of corporate and social welfare in a number of OECD countries. Chapter 5 provides data on sectoral support within OECD countries and Chapter 6 looks at the impact of the economic crisis on national welfare systems and the impact of corporate welfare measures on social welfare in the wake of the post-2008 global economic crisis. This chapter examines aggregate comparative data from four angles. First, the general business climate is considered, with a focus on business needs satisfaction scores alongside regulations, corporate taxation and tax benefits. Secondly, it seeks to quantify some of the key benefits obtained by corporations from governments. Thirdly, the chapter attempts to estimate the relative costs dedicated to the various categories of welfare. Lastly, it plots different welfare systems according to their location on the social-corporate welfare divide.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2012
The importance of the international arena to the shaping of national welfare systems has already ... more The importance of the international arena to the shaping of national welfare systems has already been alluded to in previous chapters. This chapter examines globalisation in more detail, especially as it relates to international discourse and legal frameworks governing approaches to welfare. The international context is especially important in informing our understanding of the balance between corporate and social welfare that characterises the diversity of existing welfare systems. Regulations regarding provision to and protection of national corporations have been established for some time. In the present stage of globalisation, global regulations and discourse in the area of social welfare are playing an increasingly important role in shaping national welfare systems, a process that began as far back as the 1970s. This chapter examines the international context for welfare, looking at what globalisation has meant for the distribution of power within and beyond nation states and its implications for welfare programmes. It also considers the importance of global discourse on welfare to the framing of supranational and national welfare debates. It begins with a definition of globalisation before going on to consider the importance of economics and politics to welfare policy.
Bristol University Press eBooks, Sep 7, 2017
Policy Press eBooks, May 31, 2023
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Aug 6, 2021
Policy Press eBooks, Jan 28, 2004
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Papers by Kevin Farnsworth