Approximations to the Future of the Labour Market

In this comprehensive essay, which is in many ways connected to the other article (co-authored by Johannes Berger) featuring in this collection, Offe embarks on a comparative analysis of the diverse approaches to the problem of “double allocation”, a highly controversial issue in the scientific and policy community as well as in public debates at the time. In his analysis, Offe identifies three major discourses: “the orthodox” position tends to stick to old realities and classifies the changing social and economic context as a temporary distraction; the “realist” approach tries to face those changes, communicate the “inconvenient truth” to the public and adjust the policies to the new realities; meanwhile the “third way” approach can be interpreted as an attempt to overhaul both the theoretical understanding of labour and the corresponding policy tools. He views his own attempts (in the previous essay) to reformulate “labour” as a major strain of these “third way” approaches.