https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Thu, 30 Apr 2020 16:47:41 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/familistic-welfare-capitalism-in-crisis-social-reproduction-and-anti-social-policy-in-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:21 +0000 http://arc.local/items/familistic-welfare-capitalism-in-crisis-social-reproduction-and-anti-social-policy-in-greece/ Continued]]> Familistic welfare capitalism is a model of national political economy prevalent in many regions in the world (Southern Europe, Latin America, and Asia), where the family plays a double role as the key provider of welfare and a key agent in the model’s socio-economic and political reproduction. The article offers a new approach to the study this model by adopting an expanded concept of social reproduction to capture its historical evolution, using Greece as a case study. Our empirical analysis of austerity measures on employment and pensions demonstrates, how, in the Greek case, a crisis of social reproduction of the traditional form of familistic welfare capitalism was already underway prior to the well-known sovereign-debt crisis. And further we show how the adoption of austerity measures and pro-market reforms is deepening this crisis by severely undermining the key pillars of familial welfare security while rapidly transforming the model into a political economy of generalised insecurity.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/the-greek-welfare-state-in-the-age-of-austerity-anti-social-policy-and-the-politico-economic-crisis/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:14 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-greek-welfare-state-in-the-age-of-austerity-anti-social-policy-and-the-politico-economic-crisis/ Continued]]> Greece was the first of the countries in the EU periphery engulfed in the so-called sovereign debt crisis that followed the crisis in the financial and banking sectors. . Our chapter begins with a brief discussion of the background to the crisis and explores how multiple and mutually re-enforcing causes created the ‘perfect storm’ conditions for its eruption. This is followed by a critical presentation of the key austerity and deregulatory measures adopted by the Greek government until the end of December 2011. Most of these measures were preconditions for the tranches of the ‘bail out’ loan agreed with the so-called ‘troika’ of lenders, the ad-hoc body comprising representatives of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (ECB/EU/IMF). A discussion of the impact of austerity measures on the economy, welfare and society more generally, as well as our final reflections conclude the chapter. It is argued that the austerity measures and the deregulatory, pro-market, policy reforms prescribed by the ECB/EU/IMF and pursued by consecutive Greek governments have culminated into an anti-social policy that has done nothing to alleviate the crisis. Instead it has severely reduced socio-economic security, traumatized social cohesion and democratic governance and sunk the Greek economy into the deepest and more prolonged recession in recent memory with detrimental effects for the state’s finances and Greek society more generally.

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