Conclusion

The conclusion places Germany’s current position in the EU within a global context and draws out the wider implications of this study. It advances a conception of neoliberalism as a multifaceted process in which actors draw upon, and contribute to, an ever wider array of available techniques to deconstruct or reconfigure the social, economic, and political gains working people had wrought from capital and invested in the postwar welfare state. While in this respect neoliberalism is the indispensable marker for a new era of capitalism, it is too amorphous a term to serve as a guide to the emerging frontiers and faultlines of the global political economy.