Social versus Corporate Welfare

The greatest myth of modern times is the suggestion that capitalism and corporations do better with less government. The global economic crisis has certainly put paid to this idea. But the massive emergency state bailouts and interventions put in place from 2008 were unique only in their size and scale. Government programmes, designed to meet the needs of business, are not just everyday, they are everywhere and they are essential. Just as social welfare protects citizens from the cradle to the grave, corporate welfare protects and benefits corporations throughout their life course. And yet, in most countries, corporate welfare is hidden and underresearched. Drawing on comparative data from OECD states, this book seeks to shed light on the size, uses and importance of corporate welfareacross variouswelfare regimes.

'A very timely and highly provocative analysis of the corporate welfare state. It will shift the way that people think about the relationship between the state, social welfare and corporations. This is a badly needed original contribution to debates about policy options in a world racked by financial crisis.' - Robert O'Brien, Director, Institute of Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University, Canada 'You would imagine that after the Great Financial Crash and the Great Public Bailout the topic of corporate welfare would be back on the policy agenda. Not so. But now Kevin Farnsworth has developed an original and comparative approach, identifying business needs and human needs and studying their interrelation.' - Ian Gough, Emeritus Professor, University of Bath, UK, and Professorial Research Fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK 'This important and timely book explores the relationship between corporate and social welfare, and analyses the ways in which welfare states actively support business and corporate interests.' - Nick Ellison, Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds, UK 'A wonderfully timely and prescient analysis and reappraisal of the role of corporate welfare in contemporary capitalism.' - Colin Hay, Professor of Political Analysis, University of Sheffield, UK 'Scholars of inequality and justice under globalization have long been concerned about the rise of corporate power, the increasing wealth of the 1% and the shift in income favouring profits over wages. What has been missing is the type of in-depth analysis provided in this book of how such developments affect and are affected by 'corporate welfare'. This is critical social science research at its best debunking conventional wisdom, exposing the elephant in the room, generating new evidence, and laying the analytical foundations for rethinking policy and politics for a fairer society.' - Peter Utting, Deputy Director, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Geneva, Switzerland 'In relentlessly scrutinizing the limited data on public subsidies and support to capital, Kevin Farnsworth opens up important issues much neglected in national and comparative analyses of welfare.' - Adrian Sinfield, Emeritus Professor of Social Policy and University Fellow of Organization Social Policy, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, UK

KEVIN FARNSWORTH Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Sheffield, UK. He has previously written on corporate power and influence, business and public policy, class struggle and social policies and occupational welfare. His two previous books are Corporate Power and Social Policy and Social Policy in Challenging Times (with Zoe Irving).