What do indebted employees do? Financialisation and the decline of industrial action

Abstract

While isolated episodes of work stoppages keep occurring, aggregate industrial action rates have been on the decline over the last five decades. Attempts to explain this trend centre on the short‐term effects of the business cycle and the long‐term impacts of labour market liberalisation, deindustrialisation and globalisation. This paper argues that household indebtedness is a missing piece of the puzzle. Since indebted employees tend to become self‐disciplined at the workplace on the fear of losing their job and defaulting, this paper argues that the post‐1970 rise of household financialisation is associated with the decline of strike activity. The econometric evidence reported provides strong support to this argument for the cases of Japan, Korea, Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom over the period 1970–2018.

Liberation Theology Today: Tasks of Criticism in Interpellation to the Present World

“…After that, in the second part, the paper tries to understand the present world, for which it is necessary to carry out an analysis of the defeat of liberation theology from a historical perspective (Smith 1991;Lernoux 1982Lernoux , 1990Berryman 1984Berryman , 1987Cousineau 2022;Comblin 1993;Dussel 1979;López Trujillo 1980;Hinkelammert 1995Hinkelammert , 2021) and a sociophilosophical one (Fukuyama 2006;Hinkelammert 1995Hinkelammert , 2018Hinkelammert , 2021Bell 2001;Mendoza-Álvarez 2016;Bingemer and Susín 2016;Adorno 2007;Harvey 1989Harvey , 2019Gouzoulis 2023;Mau 2023;CEPAL 2022), which are mutually interpellated by each other.…”

“…The third section of this paper is its propositional part. For this purpose, a brief analysis of the present world is carried out, taking into account both the economic and cultural aspects of postmodern reality from the Marxist critical tradition and the critical elements of liberation theology (Adorno 2007(Adorno , 2008(Adorno , 2012(Adorno , 2017Reed 2020;Jameson 2007;Heinrich 2012;Mau 2023;Hinkelammert 2021;Maiso 2022;Bobka and Braunstein 2022;Schumpeter 2008;Horkheimer and Adorno 2007;Gordon 1996;Sobrino 1991;Dussel 2021;CELAM 2007;Gouzoulis 2023;CEPAL 2022).…”

Why are (financialised) workers becoming more resigned and conformist and less claimants? Empirical evidence for Portugal

“…It is widely acknowledged that labour conditions have been worsening and workers have been progressively losing some labour rights since the 1970s and 1980s (Gouzoulis, 2023a), which is visible in stagnant (or falling) wages (Kristal, 2010;Dünhaupt, 2011;Stockhammer, 2012Stockhammer, , 2017Karabarbounis and Neiman, 2013;Lin and Tomaskovic-Devey, 2013;Stockhammer and Wildauer, 2016;Barradas and Lagoa, 2017;Barradas, 2019;Alcobia and Barradas, 2023), the rise of personal income inequalities (Lakhani and Barradas, 2023), the proliferation of atypical work (Kalleberg, 2000(Kalleberg, , 2009Chan, 2023;Gouzoulis et al, 2023a), the increase of precariousness (Tridico and Pariboni, 2018;, the surge of emotional abuses in the workplace (Buttigieg et al, 2011), the deterioration of work-life balance (Ayudhya et al, 2019) and the spread of informal work (Chan, 2023). Nonetheless, workers have evidenced higher resignation and conformism and lesser claimant behaviour by decreasing their strike activity and, thus, constraining their demands for higher wages and better labour conditions (Godard, 2011;Kelly, 2015;Gouzoulis, 2023a). The deceleration of economic activity (Kaufman, 1982;Tracy, 1986;McConnell, 1990;Goerke and Madsen, 2004), the disinflationary process (Gouzoulis, 2023a), the deindustrialisation and the consequent reduction of industrial work (Bell, 1973;Troy, 1990), the globalisation and the corresponding increase in trade openness (Piazza, 2005;Brandl and Traxler, 2010;Tuman, 2019) and the decrease in the unionisation rate and the resultant deterioration of workers' bargaining power <...…”

“…Nonetheless, workers have evidenced higher resignation and conformism and lesser claimant behaviour by decreasing their strike activity and, thus, constraining their demands for higher wages and better labour conditions (Godard, 2011;Kelly, 2015;Gouzoulis, 2023a). The deceleration of economic activity (Kaufman, 1982;Tracy, 1986;McConnell, 1990;Goerke and Madsen, 2004), the disinflationary process (Gouzoulis, 2023a), the deindustrialisation and the consequent reduction of industrial work (Bell, 1973;Troy, 1990), the globalisation and the corresponding increase in trade openness (Piazza, 2005;Brandl and Traxler, 2010;Tuman, 2019) and the decrease in the unionisation rate and the resultant deterioration of workers' bargaining power (Kaufman, 1982(Kaufman, , 1983Gouzoulis, 2023a) are the traditional explanations found in the literature to justify the paradox of worsening labour conditions yet less strike activity since the 1970s and 1980s.…”

“…In the aftermath of Reaganomics and Thatcherism, policymakers all over the world have been committed to an active neoliberal agenda based on deregulation and flexibilisation of labour relations and, therefore, have not focused on low unemployment, high benefits and better labour conditions (Korpi and Shalev, 1979;Gouzoulis, 2023a). This has not been enough to spark higher strike activity, probably due to the strong growth of workers' financialisation and their indebtedness levels that inhibit their demands for higher wages and better labour conditions due to the fear of decreasing their income and losing their jobs and the consequent risks of default (Langley, 2007;Lazzarato, 2012;Stelzner, 2017;Gourevitch, 2018;Sweet, 2018;Grady and Simms, 2019;Gouzoulis, 2023a).…”