The article aims to show that the opposition «welfare or barbarism» is historically linked to the degree of globalization of advanced economies. I argue that the current trend is not the zeroing of the welfare state, but a radical re-definition of it along both «universalist» and...

Globalisation means gains from trade, but not for everyone. As gains from trade come along with factor price convergence, substantial fractions of the working classes in the high-wage countries of the West are likely to belong to the group of losers. In this situation it is tempting for the...