Capitalist Diversity, Ideal Types and Typologies

Abstract

If empirical varieties of capitalism were structured by rigid requirements of complementarity the space for differences would be limited and the lines of demarcation between these varieties would be relatively clear. This is, however, not the case. Instead, diversity determines the picture — even if one has to concede that it might be limited by path inertia and by unifying cultural roots of national political economies. As analysed in the previous chapter, this diversity stems from the openness and heterogeneity of empirical political economies where the, at least to some degree, different service and industrial sectors coexist just as do big-company capitalism and small-company capitalism. It also stems from the considerable range for equi-functionality of any variety’s components, the latter’s relative autonomy and from circumstantial factors like the average size of firms and the character as well as relative importance of the service and industrial sectors.