A Triumph of Failed Ideas

Steffen Lehndorff speaks about the book, A Triumph of Failed Ideas: European models of capitalism in the crisis (Brussels: European Trade Union Institute, 2012) (available for download).

Steffen Lehndorff is Senior Researcher at the Working Time and Work Organization Department at IAQ, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.

The current crisis in Europe is being labelled, in mainstream media and politics, as a ‘public debt crisis.’ The present book draws a markedly different picture. What is happening now is rooted, in a variety of different ways, in the destabilization of national models of capitalism due to the predominance of neoliberalism since the demise of the post-war ‘golden age.’ Ten country analyses provide insights into national ways of coping – or failing to cope – with the ongoing crisis. They reveal the extent to which the respective socio-economic development models are unsustainable, either for the country in question, or for other countries.

Recorded in Toronto, 25 April 2012.