Paid vacation, short workweek, nationwide pension systems, free health care, education, maternity leave, cheap housing, and many other institutions were established. Capitalism, in contrast with its nineteenth century features, initiated widespread social legislation. The comprehensive system of the welfare state, however, emerged only after World War II in Western Europe. Roosevelt also initiated major social legislation and the introduction of the social security system. The Swedish Social Democratic government, elected in 1932, started building a welfare state. For these developments, the Great Depression of the early 1930s brought about a turning point. Pension system, health care, and other welfare institutions were introduced for workers to take the wind out of the sail of the emerging socialist movement. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, in his struggle with the strong German socialist movement, turned towards the introduction of welfare institutions. The first chapter of this rivalry was opened in the late nineteenth century. The socialist challenge of capitalism required an effective response. Berend, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001 3 The Welfare State, Mixed Economy and Back to Globalized Laissez-Faire Finally, the persistence of more-than-capitalist practices is testimony to capitalism's less than hegemonic status in practice, notwithstanding discourses presenting it as currently globally hegemonic.

Its dialectical relationship with labor and the more-than-human world can undermine its coherence from the outside. Capitalism's spatial extent means that it produces persistent uneven geographical development, enriching some at the expense of others and necessitating experimentation with alternatives. This European version of capitalism fails to deliver on its promise of prosperity in part due to geography. Our very definition of capitalism references the form capitalist practices took once they arrived in Europe, and discourses presenting capitalism as the best economic system neglect the violence inflicted on other peoples and places in making this happen. Eric Sheppard, in International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (Second Edition), 2020 AbstractĬapitalism has its own particular geography, which must be attended to if we are to adequately understand its nature, and limits.

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