Variety Lost? Financial Markets and the Levelling of Cross-National Differences of Capitalism

Since autumn 2008, the financial markets are in turmoil and the world economy contracts at rates not seen since the Great Depression. Such a severe crisis usually demands for new concepts and the reappraisal of old ones. The paper compares the varieties of capitalism and the finance market capitalism approach against the background of economic crisis and shows that central assumptions of the varieties of capitalism literature should be called into question. This approach especially has neglected the impact of endogenous problems, disruptive dynamics, disenchantments and spontaneous threats. The finance market capitalism approach, on the contrary, gained in reputation as an explicative analysis of the current crisis. However, the worldwide trend of liberalization and towards institutional convergence has come to an abrupt end.