2 - Comparing Capitalisms

Summary

Introduction

For a number of years now, scholars of comparative political economy have been asking how many types of capitalism exist in contemporary societies. To date the most common answers – based almost exclusively on comparisons among developed countries – are one, two, three, four, five, or many. The answer offered here is four, based primarily on ideal types constructed around four basic mechanisms of allocation that are compatible with various ways of organizing capitalism: markets, negotiation, networks, and hierarchy.

For those seeking a more inclusive and exhaustive taxonomy of capitalisms, the lament over Hall and Soskice's (2001) original dichotomous formulation was that it was too inductive, empirically complex, and geographically narrow (only developed countries). However, even their original formulation contained hints for possible extensions. For one, their category of coordinated capitalism lumped together two different subtypes, Japanese and European CMEs, that operated on distinctive principles: group-based versus industry-based coordination, respectively (p. 34). Moreover, they speculated that some countries of southern Europe might be hybrid “Mediterranean” varieties, with more coordination on the capital side and more markets for labor. However, these possible subtypes remained undeveloped.