Capitalist Diversity and Diversity within Capitalism

"The economic crisis that began in 2008 has underscored the impact not only of embedded and assumed ways of managing the economy, but also that present circumstances are the product of a long period of experimentation and bounded diversity; it is understanding the nature of both that forms a central concern of this collection. This book redefines, develops and extends the emerging literature on internal diversity within varieties of capitalism, and the extent to which such internal systemic diversity goes beyond mere diffuseness to represent the coexistence of different logics of action within both liberal market and more cooperative varieties of capitalism. The collection is based on new, fresh material, from leading scholars in the field. The contributors come from a variety of perspectives within the broad socio-economic literature on institutions, and yet they all focus on the limitations of current institutional fixes, and the protracted and durable nature of the current crisis, which, the editors suggest, reflect profound changes in input costs and the utilization of technology. What characterizes this common ground is an inherent pragmatism, combined with an increasing sophistication in the usage of analytical concepts; illustrating the progression since the early work on comparative capitalism in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This book should be an invaluable resource for students and researchers of economic theory and philosophy as well as political economics and socio-economics"--

Christel Lane is Emeritus Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Geoffrey T. Wood is Professor at the School of Management, University of Sheffield, UK, and also Honorary Professor of the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.