ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the current crisis of the international capitalist order and its consequences for the welfare state policies of developed and underdeveloped capitalist countries. The restructuring of the state cannot take place only by repression but has to rely on an active ideological offensive that could create a new consensus around a new set of values, beliefs, and practices. In addition to those ideological interventions in the world of consumption, there are also other ideological interventions that focus on the world of production, tracing the current crises to not only the expansion of social consumption, but also to the decline of productivity in the sphere of production. The offensive strategy by capital against labor that appears in all economic, political, and ideological dimensions is more or less successful depending on the strength of the working class and the forms in which class struggle takes place.
