Capitalists Against Markets : The Making of Labor Markets and Welfare States in the United States and Sweden

## Abstract Challenges the conventional wisdom that welfare state builders take their cues solely from labor and other progressive interests. It argues instead that pragmatic social reformers in the U.S. and Sweden looked for support from above as well as below, taking into account capitalists’ interests and preferences in the political process. Legislation associated with the American New Deal and Swedish social democracy was built, consequently, on cross‐class alliances of interest. Capitalists in both countries appreciated the regulatory impact of reformist social and labor legislation. Their interests in such legislation derived from their distinct systems of labor market governance. Thus, new theory and historical evidence in this book illuminate the political conditions for greater equality and security in capitalist societies. Annotation Captialists Against Markets challenges the conventional wisdom that welfare state builders took their cues from labor and other progressive interests. Instead, Peter Swenson argues, pragmatic social reformers looked for support not only from below but also from above, taking into accountcapitalists interests and preferences. With original theory and surprising historical evidence, Capitalists Against Markets illuminates the political conditions for greater economic equality and social security in capitalist societies Captialists Against Markets challenges the conventional wisdom that welfare state builders took their cues from labor and other progressive interests. Instead, Peter Swenson argues, pragmatic social reformers looked for support not only from below but also from above, taking into account capitalists interests and preferences. With original theory and surprising historical evidence, Capitalists Against Markets illuminates the political conditions for greater economic equality and social security in capitalist societies.

Conventional wisdom argues that welfare state builders in the US and Sweden in the 1930s took their cues from labor and labor movements. Swenson makes the startling argument that pragmatic social reformers looked for support not only from below but also from above, taking into account capitalist interests and preferences. Juxtaposing two widely recognized extremes of welfare, the US and Sweden, Swenson shows that employer interests played a role in welfare state development in both countries.

Peter Swenson's study implies that contrary to popular wisdom the welfare state builders in the USA and Sweden during the 1930s were motivated by a pragmatism founded in capitalist interests and preferences The odds that a child born in America today will lead a life of extraordinary material comfort and benefit from all manner of expensive medical wonders are higher.