The welfare state: a comparative perspective
In this chapter, Robert Pinker discusses the factors that have been most instrumental in the making of the welfare state by comparing the experiences of Britain, America and Russia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He examines each country's social welfare provisions, especially over the balance between provisions based on self-help and those emanating from the state, by focusing on their contrasting popular cultures and the political and moral values involved. He also considers the international aspects of social welfare and issues relating to migration, immigration and imperialism. According to Pinker, ‘perhaps the most neglected index of popular welfare preference has been the private ownership of land, either as a means of livelihood or as a location for property’. He concludes by suggesting an alternative hypothesis which questions the ‘optimistic’ collectivist view of social policy development at both national and international levels.