Under these conditions, it is claimed that national forms of redistributive politics according to social need are undermined by market-driven capital accumulation imperatives. Welfare states and socialist polities tend to limit the power of capital and reduce profit. This supposedly renders them either liable to erosion through a revived politics of economic rationalism or to neglect through the flight of capital else- where. In both cases, investment and employment levels would suffer and increases in social dislocation and uncertainty would ensue. These kinds of spectres, it is said, create great pressure on politicians acting in the present to limit welfare and other kinds of redistributive spending The assumption is that increased globalization means increased compe- tition, and increased competition requires cuts in welfare spending (Flora, 1987; Pierson, 1991; Scharpf, 2000). This entire scenario may be regarded as a worst-case reading of the impact of economic globalization on the nation state