The welfare state sought to protect workers from labour-market risks. After Covid-19, reduced working time and greater autonomy must be on the agenda.
Columns & Interviews
Renewing welfare through universal entitlement: lessons from Covid-19
The pandemic has brought into focus the social contract between income and contribution which can underpin a solidaristic welfare state.
Covid-19 and a new social Europe
With lessons not learnt, yet with the ‘rebuilding’ of Europe very much under construction, it is time for a truly social Europe.
Corona versus culture
The pandemic closed theatres, concerts and exhibitions, imperilling many freelances. How will the creative industry re-emerge?
Assar Lindbeck: an appreciation
The Swedish economist’s life of rich activity straddled theory and policy—and painting.
Social democracy in one corner of the world
Branko Milanovic argues that ‘stop the world, we want to get off’ is no basis for a revival of progressive politics.
Enclosing the market
Despite increasing criticism of Big Tech, the business models of leading digital companies are still widely admired. That’s a problem.
Intersectionality: time for a rethink
The current understanding of intersectionality is a dead-end for progressive politics.
Trade unions need new strategies
With employers on a decades-long offensive against labour, the balance of power which once secured social dialogue has been transformed.
The European minimum wage will come—but how?
The principle of a European minimum wage is established. How it should be set is not.
Renovating Europe: a path to green recovery
A green recovery from the pandemic would heal its social scars by quickly creating jobs and fostering inclusion.
The politics of currencies
Adam Tooze argues that worrying about the euro exchange rate and a non-existent inflation enemy in Europe must give way to fiscal and monetary demand boosts.
Estonia top of the (digital) class
After the summer holidays, schools across Europe have been fretting about if and when they will have to switch back to digital distance learning—but not in Estonia.
Including the precariat
The coronavirus crisis has highlighted how the welfare state of the future must include the growing mass of precarious labour, especially among youth.
Hazardous! Occupational safety and health in the care economy during the pandemic
Protecting the health and safety of all workers in the care economy is essential, but for this to become a reality major changes are needed.
Blogs
Workers’ rights: negotiating and co-governing digital systems at work
Algorithmic systems are a new front line for unions as well as a challenge to workers’ rights to autonomy.
US economy mired in viral stagnation loop
The travails of the US economy come amid a politics never so poisonous since the civil war.
Apprenticeships: a public option
Apprenticeships raise the labour-market entry level for young people—but they need to be available in bad times as well as good.
Minimum wage: a success story with scope for improvement
Peter Bofinger argues that regionally-differentiated minimum wages should be considered for the post-coronavirus period.
A fossil fuel-free future is close at hand … if the EU wills it
An NGO-led, science-based scenario shows the European Union can become climate-neutral by 2040. All that is missing is the political will.
