The Effects of Post-Industrialism On the Political Economy of Western Europe The Decline of Corporatist Bargaining The sustained, high economic growth in Western Europe during the post-war period until 1973 led to dramatic changes in the region's political economy. As advances in transportation and communication extended the reach of international trade into newareas of the world, as technological advances allowed establishment of manufacturing facilities overseas, and as European realwages climbed to unprecedented heights, the industrial base that had served as the foundation for rapid Western European growthin the 1950's and 1960's increasingly moved to Western Europe's poorer neighbors. As the industrial base moved, so did the jobsof a large quantity of unskilled manufacturing workers who populated the assembly lines. In recent years, the liberalization of international trade has clearly demonstrated that European industry can no longer compete intraditional, large-scale industrial sectors. European successes have increasingly come from specialized, high value-added industryand from intelligent, flexible companies able to shift production quickly to capitalize on movements in world demand.The net result of these changes has been a transition to a post-industrial society, where the stable economic order of massemployment in large-scale industry has given way to mass unemployment and a breakdown of the political and social consensusthat held sway throughout the post-war period. These changes have fundamentally altered the Western European labor market.This paper will show how post-industrialism has dramatically reduced the ability of many Western European countries to deliverfull employment, not simply because of changes in employment structure, but more importantly because those structural changeshave undermined the institutional framework that allowed Western European countries to control...
