Varieties of contemporary capitalism: literature review

After the Second World War, the dominant division in the literature dealing with contemporary economy was dominated by “capitalist” and “socialist” systems. Sometimes, attention was paid to the mixed systems combining the two (Yugoslavia was given as an example). What was also discussed were the degrees of greater or lesser state involvement in economy and social policy, often referencing Sweden as the “the middle way”. Studies of the Comparative Capitalism have mainly been preoccupied with highly developed countries in Western Europe, the US, and Japan, and particular institutional features, such as the developmental state or capital market- based financial systems. In turn, researchers dealing with Asia, Africa and South America introduced other distinctions of the level of economic development. They distinguished “less developed countries” and “poor countries”, or “emergent countries” and “developing economies” (Meier and Rauch 2007). Since the 1970s, the success of Japan and later of South Korea and some other Asian countries has stimulated numerous comparisons of Asian forms of capitalism and those of the West. Research confirmed that the issue of various versions of the economy and different models of capitalism has not disappeared from the interest of the social sciences, political economy, economic sociology, and business history. Especially that many types of capitalism have coexisted, even including new models of economy, like “state capitalism” in China (Wilkins 2010; Whitley 2010).