Globalisation, Neo-strongliberalismstrong and the Employment Question.pdfVIP

Working Papers Political Science No. 01/2003 ISSN 1569-3546 Amsterdam, February 2003 Globalisation, Neo-liberalism and the Employment Question Henk Overbeek e-mail: overbeek@scw.vu.nl Department of Political Science Phone +31 20 444 6852 De Boelelaan 1081c – DBL 859 Fax +31 20 444 6820 1081 HV Amsterdam The Netherlands Internet: www.politicologie.vu Email: info@politicologie.vu Abstract Structural unemployment is causally linked to processes of restructuring in the world economy and the tendential emergence of a global labour market. The technological revolution of recent decades has made ʻjobless growthʼ the norm rather than the exception. The paper characterises globalisation as a phase of intensified commodification in the global economy, which manifests itself in the globalisation of labour markets. This structural transformation was paralleled by the emergence of global neo-liberalism as the hegemonic concept of control permeating the ideological orientation not only of traditional pro-market political forces but also of European Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. ʻCompetitivenessʼ became the key imperative causing a massive shedding of labour, particularly during the recessions of the mid 1980s and the early 1990s. In the 1990s labour market reforms were declared one of the spearheads of capitalist restructuring, not only by national governments caught in a ʻcompetitiveness raceʼ, and by international organizations reinforcing the destructive logic of this race by advocating even more far-reaching reforms (e.g. the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD), but also by business pressure groups such as the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT). In