Themes of contingency, performance, and agency are all present in theWrstmodern landmark study in this tradition, ShonWeld’sModern Capitalism( 1965 ). He
puts the varying role of a classic political institution—the state—at the center of
diVerentiation; and claims to trace a close link between institutional diVerentiation
and economic performance. In particular, since this was the height of French
economic success, a central role is ascribed to the state as a steerer of economic
institutions and manager of capitalist performance under systems of indicative
planning (especially pp. 151 – 75 ).
Though the details of institutional diVerentiation have changed in each suc-
cessive wave of the ‘‘models’’ debates, the basic principles of diVerentiation have
remained similar in the very diVerent work of, for instance, Albert ( 1993 ), Coates
( 2000 ), and Hall and Soskice ( 2001 ). DiVerent ensembles of states,Wrms, and
unions recur in the various models: Rhineland/Anglo-Saxon capitalisms (Albert);
Liberal Capitalism and Trust-Based Capitalism (Coates); Coordinated Market
Economies and Liberal Market Economies (Hall and Soskice). In ShonWeld, as
we have seen, the state was a key actor, since it ‘‘steered’’ a system of indicative
planning. Others, such as Coates, have put the treatment of labor, and of unions
as a proxy for labor, at the center of model building. Whether unions are so
placed turns critically on estimations of how far unions can be institutionally
integrated in a cooperative fashion into the management of a capitalist economy:
Whether a ‘‘high trust’’ incorporating strategy which suppresses market forces is
the best way to create a labor force that cooperatesXexibly in the hunt for high
productivity.
In part, such diVerences depend on varying views of the place of the state in
managing the core institution of capitalism, theWrm. In ShonWeld, the French state
guidedWrms through mechanisms of indicative planning. Other models have
oVered diVerent accounts of the state/Wrm nexus, and these diVerences have in
turn depended heavily on the role of diVerent institutions in the organization of
industrialWnance and the practice of corporate governance. They help deWne one
of the best established classiWcations in the literature: between Anglo-Saxon (which
predominantly means Anglo-American) capitalism, where well organized secur-
ities markets not only dominate capital markets, but also enforce a system of
corporate governance which marginalizes the state and enforces a pattern
of corporate governance privileging the pursuit of shareholder value over the
interests of other potential stakeholders; Rhineland Capitalism, where a history
of bank domination of capital markets, and elaborate systems of corporate cross-
ownership, result in the coordination ofWrm strategies by networks that unite state
and corporate elites; and East Asian capitalism, where a more recent history
of spectacular economic development is attributed in part to the capacity of
public bureaucratic agencies to manageWrm investment and disinvestment in
the light of strategic state goals. (The explicitly political roots are exposed in Roe
1994 , 2003 .)
152 michael moran