The Greed of the Market: The Helplessness of Nations in Global Economic Competition

Author: (German) Klaus Koch, Zhang Hongming, Wang Tong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-11-01
Features: Since the 1970s, European society has consistently faced a dilemma: whether to abandon policies of full employment to ensure social efficiency or to maintain policies of full employment at the cost of sacrificing social efficiency to uphold the traditional welfare state. Klaus Koch provides a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of this dilemma in European society from the perspectives of social structure, state functions, and market competition. With profound insight, he portrays the deep-seated contradictions hidden beneath the surface of employment, welfare, and insurance in Western European society. Some say that the second major task for China after ensuring basic subsistence is employment. How should we address this? China is in the construction phase of a socialist market economy system. As it moves toward a socialist market economy, how can the government and the market combine and mutually promote each other? The Chinese government is making significant efforts to build a social security system. In this process, how can we achieve fairness without sacrificing efficiency? From this book, we may gain valuable insights. In Europe, large-scale unemployment has become a social phenomenon, and the trend is still growing. Various forms of welfare states are gradually declining. Klaus Koch authentically documents the unembellished reality of the European labor society in this book and provides a thorough analysis of this situation and the fate of European welfare states, particularly the self-awareness of European nations in politics. Klaus believes that to save European society, a cultural revolution must take place, primarily to prevent the blind tendency of disconnecting social welfare from economic efficiency and to prevent the coordination between the state and society from being disrupted.