European tradition of 'Voice'

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Sociology - Work, Profession, Education, Organisation, grade: 1,7, http://www.uni-jena.de/ (Institut für Soziologie), course: HS Management and Labour in Europe, 9 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Since the Rhine-model of capitalism seems to have worldwide launched into a gradual disintegration there emerged an unending discussion in social sciences offering different predictions with regard to the future direction coordinated national economies (CMEs) may take. In this debate the German case attracted an outstanding amount of attention. The expected outcomes of the German economy's distinct move towards a much more market-orientated coordination of its activities vary widely. Most contributions on this topic base their predictions on contemporary economical and political features influencing the German capitalism and disregard deep-rooted historical traditions. However, traditional German ideology and practice may have an affect on national economical behaviour. The first purpose of the present paper is to complement existing studies with the general idea that new findings may emerge by tracing back diverse models of capitalist organisation to nations' varying traditional patterns of behaviour. The assumption is that distinct traditional attitudinal preferences in societies have promoted market minded behaviour differently across nations and have inspired, thus, different types of market economies. (In order to define fundamental differences in national ideology and practice I will refer to Hirschman's concept of exit and voice.) The second goal is to reject significant convergence of the German economy to the Anglo-American sort of liberal market capitalism.

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