PANOECONOMICUS, 2015, Vol. 62, Issue 1, pp.

123-130 Book review

Received: 4 February 2015.

Alpar Loonc Buying Time: The Delayed

Crisis of Democratic
Department of Social Sciences,
Faculty of Technical Sciences,
University of Novi Sad,
Serbia
[email protected]
Capitalism
The review is written under the
auspices of the project 179052 by Wolfgang Streeck
supported by the Ministry of Education,
Science and Technological
Development, Government of the Verso, London, 2014.
Republic of Serbia.

Wolfgang Streeck is the Emeritus Director of the Max-Planck Institute for the Study
of Societies. He has published or edited several outstanding books such as Re-
Forming Capitalism: Institutional Change in the German Political Economy, Oxford
and NY: Oxford University Press, 2009, or Politics in the Age of Austerity, (ed. Ar-
min Schfer and Wolfgang Streeck), Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013. Lately, he has
been drawing attention to himself by strong interpretations, in various journals, of the
still existing crisis (Socio-Economic Review, German Economic Review, etc.).
As shown in Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism,
Streeck represents thinking from the social-democratic orientation. Although many
people lament over this orientation as a part of an irreversible past, Streeck considers
the possibility of internal corrections of capitalism. He focuses particularly on the
fact that many theorists from the beginning of the 20th century believed that there
existed homology between civilization dynamics and growth of the public sector.
Such evocation as well as the intention to point to the decrepit public sector that is
marketized confirms the social democratic belief of this author. At the same time,
this indication should not be understood in a way that Streecks analyses reflect op-
timism regarding possibilities of mentioned corrections. It could be said instead that
one might notice a certain pessimism in his thinking, which resulted in criticism by
some interpreters. In conclusion, this is a book full of criticism of the present land-
scape of capitalism, and the main message of the book is certainly disastrous. Name-
ly, it recognizes the intensified contradiction between capitalism and democracy,
establishing a critique of many orthodox theories in this domain.
Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism actually deals
with two main topics that are, of course, related. The first topic deals with epochal
forms of capitalism crises by means of an examination of the relationship between
capitalism and democracy, beginning from the 1970s. The second topic relates to
crises which affect the European Union (EU) and also investigates the potential for
further crises within the EU.
First, one should observe Streecks methodology that he develops in several
different parts. It should be noted that he promotes capitalism as a research program
which has to be understood in a way that, only through an analytical procedure, one
124 Alpar Loonc

may realize what Streeck wants, which is a political-economic reflexion sensitive

enough to analyze capitalism as a specific type of social order. Of course, the at-
tempt to revoke the political economy is not new. Quite the opposite, in fact, as la-
mentations and attempts related to fading of former political-economic sensitivity
could easily be noted throughout history. However, the inflaming of crisis obviously
moved some epistemological frames. Heterodox, post-Keynesian, economists as rep-
resentatives of the French school of regulation, programmatically uphold the prefe-
rence to treat capitalism in a similar way that Streeck does. One may even be sur-
prised that Streeck did not take them into consideration (see, for example, Robert
Boyer 2007, Capitalism Strikes Back: Why and What Consequences for Social
Sciences?, http://regulation.revues.org/2142; Robert Boyer 2013, The Present Cri-
sis. A Trump for a Renewed Political Economy, Review of Political Economy,
25(1): 1-38, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09538259.2013.736262).
When Streeck refers to capitalism as a specific type of social order, his ref-
erences include scientists like Joseph Alois Schumpeter, Max Weber and Karl Marx.
However, Streeck has also submitted to an institutional theory i.e. institutionalist po-
litical economy. To summarize, this research program does not thematize capitalism
as a field for manifesting objective (economic) rules but as a determined context for
manifestation of interrelated social institutions. This way, he wants to grasp desira-
ble historical concreteness and political-economical historical change. Undoub-
tedly, Streeck could refer to certain trends of heterodox institutionalism in economic
theory, although he does not. Regardless, he is critical towards orthodox (economic)
theories of institutionalism (Oliver Williamson) which do not deal with the issue of
what is capitalistic in institutions and their participants, so that they do not manage to
envisage the interrelatedness of institutions, but stay within the frames of one atomis-
tic theory of isolated institutions. We shall only mention that Streeck gives one list of
parametric specifications of capitalism, on the basis of which he builds the heuris-
tics of joining micro and macro aspects. It should also be noted that, in his argumen-
tations, Streeck also brings in a moment that may be attached to Schumpeter: capital-
ism can live only with the existence of elements of non-capitalism. The fact that ca-
pitalism undermines itself and pushes itself into crisis situations may be attributed to
its constant erosion of its non-capitalistic constitutive ingredients. (In a guessing
manner, Geoff Hodgson said that capitalism may dominate only in the case it is not
totally capitalistic: nowadays, the problem is that capitalism becomes purified i.e.
becomes totally capitalistic. This is why its victory is a Pyrrhic one.) This is how
the cultural resources of traditionalism, which enable the existences of moral infra-
structure of capitalism, have been destroyed by institutionalized cynicism: this is
even declared as a basic contradiction of capitalism.
It is also good to indicate that despite emphasizing the epistemological impor-
tance of concreteness, Streeck thinks that there is also capitalism tout court. Al-
though here and there he indicates certain specific features of capitalism in different
countries, he is a trend critic who was very popular in the first decade of the new mil-
lennium, especially within the frames of varieties of capitalism. Such orientation
ran into, as Streeck says, a dogmatic of non-convergence of various capitalisms.
Therefore, an epistemological frame is suggested since it takes into consideration the

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 Book Review 125

convergence and complementarity between the existing capitalisms, even admitting

the prejudice that those types of research which take the other side of varieties of
capitalism will prevail in the near future.
Streeck certainly belongs to the pleiad of theorists who persistently treat the
relationships between capitalism and democracy (this is, again, a topic that was
somehow inherited from Schumpeter). One needs to think about such reflexive per-
formances of theorists who move within mainstream frames like Mancur Olson (rela-
tion between democracy, dictatorship and development, democratic opportunism),
Daren Acemoglu and James Robinson (for example, democracy, redistribution and
income). Streeck is most critical towards theories which he calls democratic fail-
ure. The mentioned theories la James Buchanan claim that democracies are inhe-
rently prone to spending too much money because of the opportunism of politicians
and myopia of voters. He also critiques the late Hayek who came to a binary conclu-
sion: economic freedoms versus democracy. If one wants to find certain analogies to
Streecks argument, then one may find it with Albert Hirschman: why does capital-
ism erode the phenomenon of voice? Streeck tends to comprise the current crisis:
narration about democracy and capitalism is the means which lead to articulation of
crises. Mainstream theories, such as new classical macroeconomics (which offered
the seeing of regularities of stochastic processes), degrade the crisis to an incidental
deviation and not as an outgrowth of political and economic configuration.
There is, therefore, inherently conflicting structures of democratic capitalism;
actually, the genuine antinomy of different regimes and allocation of resources.
While democracy implies collective activities/elections and social justice, capitalism
is based on principles of marginal productivity (this indication on marginal produc-
tivity is somewhat less clearly articulated; let us simply call it a market allocation).
Democratic policy leans towards egalitarian corrections, and the market (which
Streeck occasionally equalizes with capitalism) functions with stabilization of differ-
ent inequalities. Streeck also raises the question of trust, which became a relatively
often treated phenomenon in the context of crisis (Robert Schiller and George Aker-
lof, for example); however, it is important to note that Streeck returns to heterodox
economist Michal Kalecki and his renowned studies in the 1940s. For the Polish
economist, the investors trust is of key importance. However, diffusion of democrat-
ic norms, especially in the field of employment, brings into question the power of
investors: this way, the crises will be the manifestations of Kaleckian relations.
The claims about the incompatibility between capitalism and democracy are
not new. However, it is true that after World War II capitalist systems accepted and
practiced democracy principles due to fear from the democratic potentials of the
working class; in return, the organized working class entities like trade unions ac-
cepted the logic of capitalist markets in constellation which implied that the cumula-
tive economic growth is a democratic right related to mass participation of labourers
in governing a society. At the same time, it is of crucial importance that the labourers
were not bound by fear of possible unemployment (we may add: although Streeck
does not have an articulated theory of fear, he talks about it very often, so fear is one
of the most significant parametrical specificities of capitalism; anyhow, although
rare but existing references to fear require further research) because they were prom-

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126 Alpar Loonc

ised that the state would intervene in order to harmonize heterogeneous dynamics of
capitalism. Streeck is very sensitive about the hollowing of western democracy (P.
Mair) as well as about the phenomenon of consumerisation of political commit-
ment.
The trinity of growth/welfare state/egalitarian democracy provided the con-
tours of democratic capitalism in post-war orders. The neoliberal revolution related
to the late 60s and early 70s, devastated the aforementioned situation: it is good to
remember that it was an epoch that was already qualified as a growth crisis. Coexis-
tence of full employment and mass participation was being maintained, first by per-
missive monetary policy which mediated robust inflationary pressures. There was
even a belief that inflation was an integral part of democratic capitalism: just like
other phenomena with conflicting ideas, Streeck always considers inflation as distri-
butive conflicts. One may again initiate Kaleckis argument: in a situation when dis-
trust grows among capital holders, inflation produces unemployment, sanctioning the
labourers. Thus, neoliberal capitalism must reach a politically mediated monetary
discipline. Normally, politics of debt has to be understood in the context of distribu-
tive conflicts: it is a distributional debt between citizens and creditors. Finally, the
politics of austerity, as well, needs to be comprehended in a specific way, namely, as
movement in the context of political-economical configuration, and not as necessary
adjustment to postulated objective patterns.
The Neoliberal era implied decreasing inflation, but at the same time, the in-
crease in public debt (and the existence of the debt state). To this issue, namely the
problem of public finance, Streeck gives full attention, and notes not to forget that
here we may again pick up on Schumpeter and the project of fiscal sociology i.e. his
indications of tax state. For Streeck, public finance is both the indicator and cause
regarding political and economic dynamics. The situation in the public finance sector
actually expresses the structure of neoliberalism that is being determined as: (a) a
situation of the state that is forced to take care of pushing through and promoting
market relations; (b) restoring the economy as the sphere of coercion, although only
selectively.
Here one should stop for a moment. The problem of growth in the case of debt
accumulation occurs in many places (see, for example Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth
Rogoff 2011, A Decade of Debt, Centre for Economic Policy Research Discussion
Paper 8310). It is important that Streeck differentiates proximate causes and ultimate
causes in relation to understanding the present condition of capitalism. Thus, dynam-
ics and forms of public debt, tax resistance, forms of the financial crisis in 2008,
represent approximate causes of the crisis. However, the ultimate cause of the crisis
emerges as the secular decline in economic growth starting from 70s as a reaction of
corresponding political and economic participants to the aforementioned secular
trend (here, Streeck encounters the claim of Robert J. Gordon who re-established the
old claim of Alvin Hansen about secular stagnation, although only compared to
American economy. See the book relating to it, Secular Stagnation: Facts, Causes,
and Cures, ed. by Coen Teulings and Richard Baldwin, Centre for Economic Policy
Research Press, 2014). At the same time, it is important to see that growth is not just

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 Book Review 127

an economic and technical category but a certain outcome of political and economic
configuration within distributive spheres.
As one can see, Streeck thinks in the long run. There are three relevant in-
stances in terms of the present crisis to note: (i) inflation in the 1970s; (ii) state debt
following the inflation; (iii) indebtedness of economic and non-economic entities
with financial and quasi-financial entities. Streeck also identifies symptoms of the
present crisis (intensification of inequality, debt accumulation, a decline in the
growth rate). Moreover, he claims that tendencies mutually corroborate and streng-
then the vicious cycle, but he treats these moments in long time sequences as out-
comes of inherent contradictions. Undoubtedly, the present crisis is of a structural
character, but it could be understood by contextualisation of structural antinomies of
democratic capitalism. Buying time as a policy that has been administered in capi-
talism may be understood only in the long run: that is a policy which postpones the
crisis and which is no longer of explosive character but an implosive one because it
spreads in time. Postponing the crisis is not a solution to crises but its displacement
to new frames. This is how one may narrate the dynamics of capitalism from the
1970s to the present time.
Public debt in neoliberalism was treated as an equivalent of inflation for much
of history. However, as such time is limited; the accumulation of public debt faces
obstacles which press capitalism for consolidation and fiscal discipline. In neoliberal-
ism, antinomy of democratic capitalism is being pacified through extreme indebted-
ness: Streeck gladly accepts the term privatised Keynesianism which represents a
new mutation that leads us from the sphere of public to private debts. Subprime is
now a replacement for the missing social policy of democratic capitalism. And the
state is no longer a debt state but a consolidation state.
In many places, Streeck operates with binary pairs (for example, market ver-
sus social justice). Thus, Streeck understands the consolidation state in the light of
one new binary pair, namely, as an expression of division between state-people and
market-people. State-people are organized on national level, they are loyal to
their country, and cyclically go to elections. Market-people are trans-nationally
integrated. They appear only as investors or as consumers. Some of Streecks inter-
preters complained about such a division: however, one should see that Streeck (see
his explanations, Wolfgang Streeck 2014, Politische konomie als Soziologie:
Kann das gutgehen?, Zeitschrift fr Theoretische Soziologie, 3(1): 147-165) devel-
ops this distinction analytically and not for the purpose of a value hierarchy. One
may notice that this binary pair is used for analysing rentiers where they appear on
both sides.
One point is sure: the increase of public debt, pace theory of public choice, is
not the outcome of democracy but capitalism. Therefore, it would be great not talk-
ing about the excessive nature of democracy which opportunistically leans towards
unreasonable redistribution and corruption that never stops. Streecks multiple refer-
ences to the theory of public choice shows the fact that in the respective theory he
sees a certain pattern and that facing the aforementioned theory is a really important
aspect of his approach. Finally, discourses against democracy nowadays really refer
to crises of public finance more often than not. The theory of public choice actually

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neglects the following facts: (1) that the public debt is only a specific part of aggre-
gate debt; (2) that in neoliberalism there are regressive tax systems; (3) that the de-
clining level of taxation has been constantly recorded; (4) that the policy of replacing
tax revenue by debt subsists.
For Streeck, this indication occurs again in the context of the long run. Pre-
sently, neoliberal capitalism provides immunity in relation to democratic interfe-
rence, but at the same time, it democratised capitalism. Determining institutions are
out of democratic legitimation because they do not render accounts compared to citi-
zens. Democratic interferences are cut off from the growth policy.
Here one also needs to realize Streecks critical attitude towards the EU. It is
understandable that in a situation when the crisis in Europe perpetuates, and in last
three years, many significant books have been published about the EU. Some of them
offer a New Deal (M. Aglietta, T. Brand), some write about the German Europe and
about certain contradictions (U. Beck), some are saying farewell to Europe because
Britain will possibly leave the EU (D. Chartier), some write manifests for Europe (D.
C. Bendit, G. Verhofstadt), and some speak about the stabilization of two Europes
with double speed (J.-C. Piris). This way an influential theorist, like Jrgen Haber-
mas, who has always been advocating strong European unity, who has also been
praising Streeck for the sharpness of certain insights, found it appropriate to criticize
him for the elements of (alleged) nostalgia in relation to the national country. Ha-
bermas particularly attacked Streecks proposal because the concept of the euro in-
tensifies capitalism at the expense of democracy: part of this argumentation is the
proposal to create some new type of European Breton Woods with fixed, but at the
same time, adjustable exchange rates. However, the doyen of continental social
sciences, Habermas, in this orientation sees a certain danger of small-statism that
should be avoided.
Beyond a reasonable doubt, Streeck emphasizes the growing difficulties for
national states in mediating between imperatives regarding fiscal consolidation and
citizens rights. However, Streecks analyses of the EU are only a part of his dealing
with the present crisis situation of democratic capitalism; actually, we cannot sepa-
rate his really strong critical dealing with Europe and neglect general insights at the
same time. He criticizes deficits in terms of social sensitivity. This fact also explains
permanent democratic deficits. For Streeck, the EU, in a pragmatic way, shows new
forms of contradictions between democracy and capitalism, as well as the antinomy
between technocratic hubris and the functioning of national economies. Streeck
reiterates that Europe has actually never been so disunited as it is now, after the at-
tempt of unification via common currency i.e. centralized fiat money. For him, it is
an illusion which aims to show that a political community is at the same time a mon-
etary community as well. The European Central Bank became completely indepen-
dent from democratic procedures, and it also acts as a secret place of EU manage-
ment. Streeck could be, in a certain way, linked to the above mentioned Aglietta, a
significant monetary theorist who thinks that money can exist only next to a coherent
social agreement, and that the euro, with its regimes of fixed exchange rates is expe-
rienced as a certain type of foreign body i.e. as a foreign currency. Thus, the EU
becomes the prisoner of wrongly set up inflation targets. Actually, for Streeck, the

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 Book Review 129

EU carries a hallmark of capitalism mutation from the phase determined by egalita-

rian democracy and Keynesianism to the policy which is inspired by Friedrich
Hayek. Although Streeck appreciates certain contributions of Hayek, present crisis
troubles in Europe may be derived from Hayeks considerations. Finally, only by
criticizing Hayek, one may understand that the neoliberalised democracy is possible
only with the price of democracy sterilization.
As was already mentioned, Streecks pessimism was confirmed several times,
for example, in his lectures at the British Academy or LSE in January 2014. Vicious
cycles that are inherent in relation to the functioning of present capitalism imply the
following tendencies: (a) increasing inequality (Th. Piketty, etc.) heat up the explo-
sion of crisis moments, even represents one of the causes of growth increase, and
also the crisis (Streeck here actually confirms post-Keynesianistic understanding of
crisis causes); (b) poor growth intensifies distribution conflicts; (c) debt increase
joins the attempts to compensate inequalities for pervert financialization.
Nowadays, both democracy and the economy are liable to crisis processes.
Contradictions between capital and democracy became irretrievably international in
the meantime. Also, it is not possible to see a serious political possibility on either
left or right wing that could stop these interrelated tendencies. This is also a differ-
ence compared to the 1930s. At the same time, the question emerges as whether
these tendencies may endlessly repeat themselves or if they shall, in due time, pro-
duce crises that cannot be postponed. In his considerations, Streeck takes into ac-
count both Minsky and Polanyis moment. Minskys moment talks about the inherent
instability and fragility of the financial sphere (finance is an industry where innova-
tion is hard to distinguish from rule-bending or rule-breaking); and Polanyis mo-
ment refers to necessity of the existence of a certain deep cultural and moral infra-
structure so that the market can operate. As we have seen, Streeck is trying to apply
Schumpeters thinking about the possibility of existing capitalism infrastructure and
in contrast to other theorists, he seriously confronts even the prediction of a famous
economist regarding the final disappearance of capitalism. Paradoxically, capitalism
may exist only if an opposition develops against it: it has always managed to trans-
form itself based on absorption of opposing impulses. For that reason, expansion of
capitalism is a double-edged sword: this is how its vital impulses are being de-
stroyed. However, Streeck is completely right: against all opinions, Marx was not the
theorist who predicted the end of capitalism as much as Schumpeter, Werner Som-
bart or Weber; so, non-Marxist theorists. Accordingly, his references to possible ca-
pitalism breakdowns are of a pronouncedly non-Marxistic character. For the end of
capitalism one may only know that it is not about an event but about a process.
Streeck is actually worried about the fact that capitalism could reach its end, and that
it does not have an alternative, which is a present fact that cannot be questioned. Ca-
pitalism suffers from global anarchy and oligarchic distribution, and from corro-
sions of the iron cage. The letter means that one must question the expectation of
Weber - cultural values of capitalism will be transformed into the matter of bureau-
cratic regulation. However, in a situation where the pay-offs from semi-legal and
illegal activities are particularly high such a prediction is worthless.

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130 Alpar Loonc

In conclusion, Streeck is obviously most subtle when diagnosing the existing

situation. Regarding forecasts, he intentionally remains ill-defined. Of course, for-
ward-looking dramaturgy is not a part of his contemplations. Furthermore, Streecks
book is one of the most thought provoking and comprehensive achievements about
the crisis. His arguments are supported by empiric details and age-long research.
These virtues require careful reading of the book and correspondence dealing with its
diagnoses.

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