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US and European Market Economies and Welfare Systems State strategies toward work and welfare continue to differ, despite the fact that they have all moved down the continuum from faire (intervention) closer to laissez-faire . They divide into three main varieties: liberal, ‘enabling,’ and ‘enhancing,’ and are distinguishable not only by how far they have moved along the continuum but also by their mix of faire faire (state setting guidelines for market action) and faire avec (state action with market actors). Such differences are only partially explainable in terms of institutional legacies from the postwar period. Other factors such as economic vulnerability and policy preferences are significant. But most important are the political-institutional capacity to impose or negotiate change and the discourse that enhances such capacity. Using cases of advanced industrialized Western countries, the article demonstrates how different states’ trajectories of reform based on state strategies and mediating factors have been.