Social Capital Expressed in the Form of Labor Market Relations

Conclusions

The three countries studied built up different national systems of labor market relations in the manufacturing-industrial economy. These systems were based on historic cultural factors — the existing social capitals with relations and norms — but were naturally also adapted to the new industrial production system. In Sweden, a strong centralized state with roots going back to the 16^th century, the state played an active role in the shaping of industrial relations and employer-employee relations. In Japan, a tradition of groupism, hierarchies and mutual obligations formed a very decentralized system with common norms. In the United States, industrial relations and employer-employee relations were based on market criteria in which the individual’s competitiveness on a flexible labor market was the basic security.

Each of these systems worked very well as long as the industrial society worked well. Thus, an important conclusion is that these successful industrial economies were able to devise relations and norms for the industrial production system that were in conformity with their national historical and cultural traditions, i.e. they were able to form a social capital for the labor market with sufficient homogeneity and tolerance to avoid devastating large-scale conflicts.

It is highly probable that this conclusion is also relevant in the current transformation to a knowledge-based economy. Importing foreign models without adapting them to national characteristics has never been successful. Devising usable norms and relations for the knowledge economy’s labor market cannot be done without allowing for historic-cultural factors — and even in the age of globalization these factors are deeply rooted in national life.