ISSN 2544-5502 SOCIETY REGISTER 3 (2) 2019 Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan ISSN 2544-5502 SOCIETY REGISTER 3 (2) 2019 Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan SOCIETY REGISTER 2019 / Vol. 3, No. 2 ISSN: 2544-5502 | DOI: 10.14746/sr EDITORIAL TEAM: Mariusz Baranowski (Editor-in-Chief), Marcos A. Bote (Social Policy Editor), Piotr Cichocki (Quantitative Research Editor), Sławomir Czapnik (Political Science Editor), Piotr Jabkowski (Statistics Editor), Mark D. Juszczak (International Relations), Agnieszka Kanas (Stratification and Inequality Editor), Magdalena Lemańczyk (Anthropology Editor), Urszula Markowska-Manista (Educational Sciences Editor), Bartosz Mika (Sociology of Work Editor), Kamalini Mukherjee (English language Editor), Krzysztof Nowak-Posadzy (Philoso- phy Editor), Anna Odrowąż-Coates (Deputy Editor-in-Chief), Aneta Piektut (Migration Editor). POLISH EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Agnieszka Gromkowska-Melosik, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland); Kazimierz Krzysztofek, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Poland); Roman Leppert, Kazimierz Wielki University (Poland); Renata Nowakowska-Siuta, ChAT (Poland); Inetta Nowosad, University of Zielona Góra (Poland); Ewa Przybylska, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (Poland); Piotr Sałustowicz, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Poland); Bogusław Śliwerski, University of Lodz (Poland); Aldona Żurek, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland). INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Tony Blackshaw, Sheffield Hallam University (United King- dom); Theodore Chadjipadelis, Aristotle University Thessaloniki (Greece); Kathleen J. Farkas, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (US); Sribas Goswami, Serampore College, University of Calcutta (India); Bozena Hautaniemi, Stockholm University (Sweden); Kamel Lahmar, University of Sétif 2 (Algeria); Georg Kam- phausen, University of Bayreuth (Germany); Nina Michalikova, University of Central Oklahoma (US); Jaroslaw Richard Romaniuk, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (US); E. Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia (Canada); Luca Salmieri, Sapienza University (Italy); Nora Schleicher, Budapest Metropolitan Uni- versity (Hungary); Angela Scollan, Middlesex University London (United Kingdom); Alan Segal, Grande Prairie Regional College, Alberta (Canada), Darrick Smith, University of San Francisco (US); Paul Spicker, Robert Gor- don University (United Kingdom); Wolfgang Streeck, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (Germany). Text revision: Kamalini Mukherjee DTP: SR team The original version of the journal is an online edition published on the following websites: http://societyregister.eu/ https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/sr Society Register is co-financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (under the ‘Support for scien- tific journals’ programme). Abstracting/indexing services: ARIANTA, Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE), CEJSH (The Central Euro- pean Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities), CEON (Centrum Otwartej Nauki), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), European Reference Index for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (ERIH PLUS), EuroPub Database, PKP Index, IC Journals Master List, ROAD Directory of Open Access scholarly Resources, POL-index, SSOAR (Social Science Open Access Repository), Google Scholar, WorldCat, NUKAT. Published by: Editorial Office: Faculty of Sociology Faculty of Sociology Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań Szamarzewskiego 89 C, 60-568 Poznań, Poland Szamarzewskiego 89 C, 60-568 Poznań, Poland E-mail: [email protected] Tel. +48 61 8292227 SOCIETY REGISTER 2019 / VOL. 3, NO. 2 EDITED BY MARIUSZ BARANOWSKI CONTENTS #INTRODUCTION MARIUSZ BARANOWSKI THE STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL WELFARE: TOWARDS AN EMERGING WELFARE SOCIOLOGY . 07 #ARTICLES MICHEL HUSSON HOW MAINSTREAM ECONOMISTS EXPLAIN (OR NOT) UNEMPLOYMENT? . 21 JAN TOPOROWSKI FINANCIAL CONTROL AND THE EMPLOYER OF LAST RESORT . 39 DIRK H. EHNTS & MAURICE HÖFGEN THE JOB GUARANTEE: FULL EMPLOYMENT, PRICE STABILITY AND SOCIAL PROGRESS . 49 ÉRIC TOUSSAINT THE VAROUFAKIS-TSIPRAS LINE WAS DOOMED TO FAIL FROM THE WORD ‘GO’ . 67 PIER PAOLO PEDRINI FAKE NEWS AS A WEAPON OF PERSUASION . 97 ELENI KARAS FAKE NEWS AND THE RITUALISATION OF THE SELF . 109 #INTERVIEWS PATRICK VISONNEAU & WILLIAM F. CIPOLLA WHAT COLOR IS THE WHITE HOUSE? OR JOURNALISM IN THE POST-TRUTH ERA INTERVIEW WITH PATRICK VISONNEAU . 123 SOCIETY REGISTER 2019 / 3(2): 7-19 ISSN 2544–5502 DOI: 10.14746/sr.2019.3.2.01 THE STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL WELFARE: TOWARDS AN EMERGING WELFARE SOCIOLOGY MARIUSZ BARANOWSKI1 1 Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Szamarzewskiego 89 C, 60-568 Poznań, Poland. ORCID: 0000- 0001-6755-9368, Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT: The main aim of the article is to outline welfare sociology as a potential sub-discipline of sociology and to discuss the issues of broadly defined social welfare. While in contemporary social sciences the literature concerning welfare often focuses on themes such as happiness (psychology), prosperity (economics), or quality of life (sociology), these themes may be considered too narrow and do not reflect the com- plexity of the issue. However, if one considers the definition of social welfare through the prism of material and non-material needs, as well as the needs expressed individ- ually and collectively, it is possible to attempt a comprehensive study of this phenom- enon. The author uses the definition of social welfare to look at research on (a) welfare state regimes, (b) welfare attitudes and (c) issues of work in contemporary capitalism, all to enable the application of research results within the analysis of the title concept. KEYWORDS: social welfare, welfare scarcity, welfare sociology, well-being, ill-being INTRODUCTION The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of social welfare struggles (cf. Marx and Engels [1848] 1948:9). Class struggle, for example, is an important but only a subset of the space/agglomerate of multifaceted battles for social welfare. Although differently conceptualised, the welfare project was, in the past and is today the goal of not only individuals or groups of people, but above all of the complex societies, with their specific social diversity as a consequence of the dominant economic system. The influence of capitalism on social welfare in the broadest sense - sometimes referred 8 SOCIETY REGISTER 2019 / VOL. 3., NO. 2 to as prosperity (Marshall 1961, Pontusson 2005), wealth (Daunton 2007) or affluence (Galbright [1952] 1998) - as well as its lack, determines the core of interest in con- temporary social sciences. Even if the concept itself is reduced to the requirements of theoretical-methodological orientation of a particular discipline or sub-discipline, interest in the quality and standard of living of broad social groups (e.g. sociology, economics, history) or individuals (e.g. psychology) exists in all of them. Even an at- tempt at a cursory look at today’s socio-economic and political situation in the world leaves no doubt as to what is the object of concern and indignation for the inhabitants of all continents. In some countries this struggle takes the form of direct strikes with the reaction from the police and the military (e.g. Chile, Bolivia, France, Greece, Chi- na), while in others it assumes less organised forms such as strikes, peaceful street protests, parliamentary and judicial battles. In all cases, however, it is all about social welfare, which, while being achieved in different ways, sets the course for different actions and mobilisation of individuals and broad social groups. TRYING TO DEFINE SOCIAL WELFARE The wide range of meanings of social welfare, and therefore problems with its defini- tion, is a consequence of the wealth of theoretical perspectives and empirical attempts to operationalise the concept (Baranowski 2017). Furthermore, it should be added that this concept covers many determinants of different scope (from the question of free- dom through material conditions to the subjective conviction of personal security and the future of the community). It is difficult to imagine the possibility of developing a satisfactory definition of social welfare that would respond to the repeatedly ex- clusive requirements of researchers and practitioners of social life (cf. the fiasco of determined reconstructionism in the construction of concepts - Oppenheim 1981 and Sartori 1984). The following proposal, therefore, does not aspire to be a universal in- terpretation, since such an interpretation does not and cannot exist. However, given the sociological perspective, the restrictive attempts to define social welfare, whether from a (cognitive) psychology or (welfare) economics perspective, are not acceptable. Thus, the proposal presented here is not so much to conduct psychological (referred to as subjective well-being) or economic (as part of the classical school of econom- ics) criticism of welfare, but rather to include or incorporate the “key” components of these approaches in a broader sociological context. Because sociology is a positivist science in the sense that it deals with social reality as it is, the opposite of social welfare, which has been described as “welfare scarcity,” has been introduced into the conceptual model (which plays a heuristic role). At the individual level, the concepts of well-being and ill-being, well established in cognitive psychology, correspond to them (see Fig. 1). MARIUSZ BARANOWSKI