A Third Way in Industrial Relations?

Abstract

Analysing the idea of a third way between social democracy and neoliberal-ism is difficult, since social democracy itself has been a third way between socialism (seen as the removal of productive resources from private ownership to some form of collective control), and laissez-faire capitalism.¹ At the same time that social democracy in this sense was developing — broadly, from the 1930s to 1950s — conservative political forces were responding with their own middle way between these alternatives. As a result, in many advanced democracies political conflict in the first three post-war decades was played out in a rather narrow space. It is interesting to note that although both social democracy and reformist conservatism were compromise strategies, the policy mix they developed was not a mere central path between laissez-faire capitalism and socialism, but an original approach containing elements neither belonging to nor anticipated by either parent ideology: Keynesian demand management, neo-corporatist industrial relations, universal welfare states.² This was a true third way.