The Global Hinterland of Social Democracy<subtitle>On the Limitations of Norwegian Welfare Capitalism</subtitle>

Abstract

Every instantiation of decommodifying welfare capitalism relies on a global hinterland, an exterior space for which commodification still remains the rule and whose function is to service the national interior of a social democratic polity. Taking Norway as its case study, this article deploys the notion of a protective “cupola,” following Žižek and Wacquantʼs concept of the “centaur state,” as productive ways of thinking about how late-modern social democracy relies upon dualization and structural bifurcation. While extracting resources, low-cost labor, cheap goods, and financial profits from the global hinterland, the welfare-capitalist state privileges its national citizenry. Despite significant neoliberal transformation, it continues to protect the populace from the vagaries of the market, but at the expense of the world beyond its bounds. Social democracy, then, hinges on the preservation of difference, failing to offer a truly globe-encompassing, universal response to the commodifying effects of market capitalism. Welfare capitalism tends to mean welfare for insiders, (liberal) capitalism for the rest.

Keywords

• social democracy
• welfare capitalism
• neoliberalism
• critical theory
• political economy