Social Democratic Reform Proposals and the Future of Capitalism (Dynamics OF SOCIAL Transformation) (Report‪)‬

Following Hayek and Freidman there is now renewed emphasis on "the universal permanence of capital". This view has been accepted by the West's leading social democrats--such as Habermas and Rony-who nevertheless reject the Hayekian thesis about the spontaneous evolution of capitalist order and its constituent structures and institutions. Differences in "Fordist" and "Post Fordist" regimes of accumulation have been analysed. Social democrats believe that a reformed capitalism can serve as a mechanism for the universalisation of freedom and the promotion of justice in a rights centric social order. The governance discourse is also concerned with capitalist reform. But the "new political economy" of the World Bank mainly retains neo-classical and/or new institutionalist presumptions. This leaves little room for an evaluation of system wide reform. Evaluating reform in terms of their system wide impact requires some understanding of the global national systems of mediation within which the reforms are to be articulated. It also requires knowledge of the processes through which the system changes. Policy is concerned with an evaluation both of spontaneous trends and the efficacy (in terms of explicitly specified dominant objectives) of deliberately articulated mediations. We propose to problemitise capitalist development at the turn of the 21st century with a view to addressing some of these issues.