ABSTRACT
The ‘Dutch model’ today occupies a prominent place for progressive European politicians pondering the possibilities of a new model of capitalism with a human face in an era of economic internationalization. Foreign politicians, central bankers and union leaders alike praise the combination of fiscal conservatism, wage moderation, consensual welfare reform, job creation and the maintenance of overall social security. They highlight the extraordinary proportion of Dutch people, male and female, in part-time jobs, the sustained policy of wage moderation by the trade unions; the success in holding the course for EMU and the absence of social unrest. Best of all, they observe, the Netherlands is the only EU member state to have more than halved its unemployment rate during the past decade, from 13-plus per cent in 1983 to 5 per cent in 1998. Its annual growth rate in jobs of 1.6 per cent is four times the European average, and as good as the American ‘job machine’, but without the US’s sharp increase in earning inequality and life-chances.
