Social security, full employment and voluntary action: The three pillars of William Beveridge's welfare society

THE 1950s WERE A WONDERFUL DECADE FOR APPLIED SOCIAL science: for the belief that reason addressed to economic and social problems can improve the human condition. Compare the 1950s with the 1930s and ask how much of the improvement was due to Keynes and Beveridge. It is inevitable that a generation of debunkers should follow whose answer would be ‘not much’. But that would have seemed a strange conclusion in the 1950s; and the view of the 1950s was surely right. We had full employment in place of 10 per cent unemployment in the 1920s and nearly 15 per cent in the 1930s; and after the first years of post-war reconstruction, it was reasonable to attribute this to Keynesian demand management. We had a safety net through which relatively few fell into poverty; and this was Beveridge's social security and the welfare state.

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Relief Trends and Family Life

The Family ◽

10.1177/104438943902000102 ◽

1939 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

pp. 7-10

Author(s):

Elizabeth Morrison

Keyword(s):

Social Security ◽

Family Life ◽

Large Scale ◽

Local Community ◽

Family Welfare ◽

The Family ◽

Welfare Society ◽

Executive Secretary ◽

Local Relief ◽

Long Range Planning

At the last of a series of “Know-Your-City” meetings of the League of Women Voters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the two speakers—Anne E. Geddes of the Bureau of Research and Statistics, Social Security Board, and Elizabeth Morrison, Executive Secretary of the Family Welfare Society of Cambridge—presented the local relief picture from two angles: On the statistical side, Miss Geddes pointed out that thirteen million dollars had been spent for relief in Cambridge from 1929 to 1937 (only 5 per cent by private agencies); that expenditures for relief per inhabitant had increased from $3.53 in 1929 to $21.76 in 1937 (less, however, than in some other Massachusetts cities for which she gave comparative figures); and that “the peak in expenditures appears not yet to have been reached. It is clear that large-scale relief spending will continue and that long-range planning is necessary to prevent and mitigate need.”1 Miss Morrison, in the paper presented here, attempted to convert the cold figures into terms of specific people seeking relief for their needs in the specific local community—of which her audience were interested citizens.

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In the shadow of the welfare society ill-health and symptoms, psychological exposure and lifestyle habits among social security recipients: a national survey study

BioPsychoSocial Medicine ◽

10.1186/1751-0759-2-15 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Amir Baigi ◽

Eva-Carin Lindgren ◽

Bengt Starrin ◽

Håkan Bergh

Keyword(s):

Social Security ◽

National Survey ◽

Survey Study ◽

Lifestyle Habits ◽

Welfare Society

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Zur Politischen Ökonomie des Wohlfahrtsstaates - und ihrer überfälligen Kritik

PROKLA Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft ◽

10.32387/prokla.v12i49.1501 ◽

1982 ◽

Vol 12 (49) ◽

pp. 99-120

Author(s):

Michael Krätke

Keyword(s):

Social Security ◽

Social Service ◽

Full Employment ◽

Service State

Einen Wohlfahrtsstaat zu schaffen, der den inneren sozialen Krieg der Nationen auf immer beenden sollte, wurde im Verlauf des II. Weltkrieges zum innenpolitischen Kriegsziel Nummer 1 der Alliierten. Die Idee eines Wohlfahrtsstaates, in dem Not, Krankheit, Unwissenheit beseitigt und eine »soziale Demokratie« auf der Basis gleicher sozialer Grundrechte für jedermann verwirklicht sein sollte, gehörte zum Pathos dieses Krieges und wurde zum politischen Kampfbegriff der nichtkommunistischen Linken im Nachkriegseuropa. Dieser Kampf- und Wertbegriff stand und steht unter Ideologieverdacht. Ideologieverdächtig war die Rede vom Wohlfahrtsstaat, weil dies neue Schlagwort der politischen Sprache zusammen mit seinen zahlreichen, schmückenden Parallelausdrücken - wie »Social Service State«, »Social Security State«, »Full Employment State« usw. - ein epochemachendes Programm umschrieb, das die Legitimation des bürgerlichen »Rechtsstaates« auf eine neue, verbreiterte Basis stellen sollte ( vgl. Kraemer 1966, 13f). Die intellektuelle Linke hat sich denn auch mit Vorliebe auf die »Sozialstaatsideologie« gestürzt und versucht, ihren Ideologieverdacht zu erhärten.

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The Irreversible Welfare State: Its Recent Maturation, its Encounter with the Economic Crisis, and its Future Prospects

International Journal of Health Services ◽

10.2190/dnxx-mu7p-9mj6-dla2 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 16 (3) ◽

pp. 319-338 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Göran Therborn ◽

Joop Roebroek

Keyword(s):

Social Security ◽

Welfare State ◽

Social Services ◽

Economic Crisis ◽

Full Employment ◽

Armed Forces ◽

1960S And 1970S ◽

State Growth ◽

The 1960S ◽

The Welfare State

The rise of the welfare state in the 1960s and 1970s meant important changes within the Western states: apparatuses of armed forces, bureaucratic ordering, and public transport and communication became institutions of transfer payments to households, and public education, caring and social services. In this article we describe the influence of the current economic crisis on the welfare state. Average yearly growth of social security expenditure continues, but has declined since 1981. Generous systems of social security clearly provide no security against the consequences of the economic crisis, especially unemployment. Public commitment to social security and full employment are largely independent of each other. We describe how, under the surface of welfare state growth, the political relations of force have changed in favor of those social forces advocating fundamental reappraisal of the welfare state over those supporting its maintenance or extension. The resistance to significant changes is so strong, however, that fundamental reconstruction of the welfare state is as yet excluded. We hold that the welfare state is an irreversible major institution of advanced capitalist countries, as long as democracy prevails. The building of a majoritarian anti-welfare state coalition seems impossible for the foreseeable future, but in some countries significant cuts must be expected; we end by specifying some economic and political preconditions for such cuts.

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