Trajectories of Neoliberal Transformation: European Industrial Relations since the 1970s, By Lucio Baccaro and Chris Howell (2017) Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Delhi and Singapore: Cambridge University Press, 261 pages. ISBN: 978-1-107-60360-1

In the 1960s and 1970s, a number ofWestern style economies introduced in-comes policies in attempting to respond to problems associated with inflation, rising unemployment and deteriorating balance of payments. A literature developed concerning whether nations that made use of incomes policies had a superior economic performance compared to those that had not. By the 1980s, it morphed into discussions concerning ‘corporatism’ versus market based systems. Canadian scholar Leo Panitch defined corporatism as “a political structure within advanced capitalism which integrates socioeconomic producer groups through a system of representation and cooperative mutual interaction at the leadership level and of mobilisation and social control at the mass level”. Scholars experienced difficulties in determining whether or not, and the degree to which, respective nations where corporatist or not. One of the games they developed was slipping backwards and forwards between scales of centralized/decentralized and coordinated/uncoordinated. The problem was taking account of societies which moved away from centralization, and the desire/need of scholars to nonetheless describe them as corporatist. They ‘scored’ highly on the coordination scale. A problem with both these scales is knowing how to attach scores to the so-called objective measures that underpin them. Attachment of scores is highly subjective. Overseas scholars have had different scores than I would attach to the Australian situation due to their inability, in my view, of understanding the nuances associated with the changing dynamics of Australia’s tribunal system. This is the case with Baccaro and Howell’s Trajectories of Neoliberal Transformation: European Industrial Relations since the 1970s (p. 34-41). I disagree with virtually all of their measures, or those that they rely on, concerning Australia. This, in turn, induces a lack of confidence in other measures and their subsequent econometric analysis based on these ‘manufactured’ numbers (p. 41-53). Baccaro and Howell focus on developments in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden, and maintain that in the last 35 years employers have been given more discretion in decision-making, a process that they describe as liberalization. Have you noticed that their book has Neoliberal in its title rather than Liberal? Is this odd ? Do we really need to worry about it? Throughout the book, they switch between liberal/liberalization and Neoliberal, and another concept, more of which will be examined below. On page 16, they say that: “A discussion of the meaning of neoliberalism and its difference from classical liberalism is beyond the scope of this book”. Given that they use these terms—and after all the term Neoliberal appears in the title—is it incumbent on them to enter into a discussion of classic liberalism and neoliberalism? If they are using terms interchangeably and readers are unsure what meaning the authors attach to them, how are readers expected to follow their analysis? Are defining terms and sticking to them something basic to scholarship? Neoliberalism is usually defined in terms of non-interference with or in market mechanisms: the economists’ notion of laissez-faire. Despite their decision to not discuss the meaning of neoliberalism, they state: “it is not about limiting state intervention and returning to some form of laissez-faire” (p. 16). Really, the phrase “some form of laissez-faire” can cover a multiple of sins. The authors would be well advised to consult Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains to see what can in fact happen when it is decided to return “to some form of laissez-faire”. Baccaro and Howell then say neoliberalism is “about using state power to bring about (and institutionalize) a market order, that is a society in which individuals conceive and relate to one another as providers of specialized services in all spheres, and coordinate …