Social democrats generally hold mass unemployment to be the main scourge of
the market economy. Yet, social democratic policies for full employment have
met with strikingly different levels of success. Money, Markets, and the State
provides in-depth explanations for the various successes and failures of the
economic policies of social democratic governments in five Western European
countries: Germany, Great Britain, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands. Dr.
Notermans examines these economies from the inflation following the conclusion
of World War I, through the Great Depression, and up to the present-day
conditions of mass unemployment. Drawing on a wide range of historical and
statistical sources, Dr. Notermans argues that the fate of social democratic
economic policy hinges on the political and institutional success of maintaining
price stability, and not on structural economic factors such as changing supplyside
conditions or the increasing globalization of economic relations. Although
social democracy has repeatedly been declared obsolete, this study concludes
that successful social democratic policies for growth and full employment remain
possible even under the present conditions of an increasingly globalized
economy.