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  • Biggs T. The Welfare State

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    Monique Guerreiro
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    Biggs T. the Welfare State

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    6 views7 pages

    Biggs T. The Welfare State

    Uploaded by

    Monique Guerreiro

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 7
    The Welfare State in Historical Perspective Asa Briggs tel A welfare state is state in which organized power is deliber (through ly used agreed range of so. and second of these obj bby what used to be n of welfare raises qui different issues. Within the context of the age of modern political Asa Briggs 9 ‘economy an attempt has been made, and is still being made, o create and waintain a self-regulating system of markets, including markets in the ind, money and labour. ‘The 1m empt t0 control these markets requi lying behind the 1g analys Second, the conception of ‘social contingencies’ is strongly influenced by the experience of industrialism. Sickness, old age and death enta hardships in any kind of society. Ancient systems of law and morality include precepts designed to diminish these hardships, precepts based, for example, on the obligations of sons to support claims of charity, obsequium religionis, Unemployment, however, at least in the fo hits thought ct ‘contingency, isa product of y than any other social shape and timing of modern wel- in. Before the advent of mass unemployment, ‘unemploy~ hood by work, was ‘careful and rests to the considera thropic businessmen justice’ of to avoid sequences of unemployment. in the inter-war years and the the church, rade union, friendly society) of ophies of welfare have been “ions: often the philosophies and the suggestion that the yy of using. governmental yy €0 the balance of economic and ing them have been vene. The has been related in each cout forces; estimates o luding expert knowledge of the convict 20 The Welfare State in Historical Perspective Not only does the weighting ofeach of these factors vary from period to period, but it also varies from place to place. It was Bentham, scarcely distinguished for his historical sense, who in distinguishing berween agenda (tasks of government) and sponte acta (unplanned decisions of ividuals) wrote that ‘in England abundance of useful things are done —by-individals-which-irother countries are done either by-government or not at all...[while) in Russ'a, under Peter the Grea, the list of sponce acta being a blank, that of agenda was proportionately abundant." This co trast was noted by many other writers later in the nineteenth century, just 35 an opposite contrast between Britain and the United States was often moted after 1945, r If the question of what consti ‘ tion of the nature and approach to ‘social contingencies’, why the state rather than some other agency becomes the maa in of welfare involves very detailed examination of a whole range of ical circumstances. The answer to the question is complicated, moreover, by differences of attitude in different countries, to the idea of ‘the state itself, Given these differences, a translation of basic terms into different langua which politicians and jour have obscured. For example, is the term Wohlfabrtsstaat the 1 tion of welfare state? British and German approaches to 'the st been so different that they have absorbed t erations of political scient od 1 question of tes welfare involves de of Samuel self help was “3 peu ble range of agreed social services’ set ou defnionof welfare sae ashing ange, Poli d of much of the post-1945 criticism, are never fixed for various times was considered to be & proper range shifts, as Dicey showed, and consequently must be examined historically. So too must chan areas of agreement and conflict. Public health was once a high! versal issue in European societies: it still s in some other socictes. The regarded by the pioneers of publ chains of consequences. Ie marked ime. What at “sanitary idea’ was 1 idea which had large and far-reae and other places, but person: is controversy, very bitter indeed in the Ui Asa Briggs a such as social insurance, direct provision in cash or in kind, subsidy, partnership with other agencics (including private business agencies) and through local authorities. In health policy alone, although medical sowledge isthe same in all countries of the West and the same illnesses are likely to be treated in much the same kind of way, there isa remackable diversity of procedures-and-institutions-even'in countries which make ‘extensive public provision for personal health services. Fifth, there are important historical considerations to take into account in tracing the relationship between the three different directions of public intervention in the free (or partially free) market, The demand for ‘min- tum standards’ can Lc related to.a particular set of cumulative pressures. Long before the Webbs urged the-need in 1909 for government action to i, of civilized life’, che case for particular minima had been powerfully advocated. Yet the idea of basing social policy as a whole on a public commitment to ‘minimum’ standards did Britain ‘until the so-called ‘Beveridge World War. The third direction of ‘welfare’ « direction of the welfare state, can be understood’ ic and more recent history. The idea of separating weliare policy from ‘subsistence’ standards (the old minima, however neasured) a © ‘acceptable’ standards. (‘usual work ne"), provi on of the extent to which ‘primary poverty" been reduced in ‘affluent societies”. Ie may.be related, however, to Ider ideas of equality, some of which would lead direct not’ to state int het but to the elimination of the market together, at least 2s a force influencing human relationships. A con- sideration of the contemporary debate is more rewarding if tis grounded ory. bee revolution’ of th experience in the nineteenth century was in certain important espects different from that of Britain, If before 1900 factory legislation was more advanced in Britain than in any other European country, Ger~ yy lad established a “lead” in social securiey legislation which the British Liberal governments of 1906 to 1914 tried to wipe out. Bismarck’s forms of the 1880s = laws of 1882, 1884 and 1889 introducing eompuls- ‘ory insurance against. sickness, accidents, old age and invalidity — immense interest in other European countries. Just as British factory legislation was copied overseas, 50 German social insurance uted foreign imitation. Denmark, for instance, copied all three mian pension schemes between 1891 and 1898, and Belgium between 994 and 1903. Switzerland by 4 constitutional ameridment ia 1890 empowered the federal government 10 organize a system of national icselfa friendly observer noted in 1890 that Bismarck had ‘discovered where the roots of social evil lie. He has declared in words 2 The Welfare Stare in Historical Perspective that burn that it is the duty of the state to give heed, above all, to the welfare ofits weaker members’? More recently Bismarck’s social policy has been described by more than ‘one writer as the creation of a welfare state The term is very misleading Bismarck’ legislation rested on a basie conservatism which Oastler him- self would have appreciated and was sustained by a bureaucracy which had no counterpart in Britain except perhaps in Chadwick's imagination. ‘The Prussian idea and history ofthe state and the British idea and history of the state diverged long before the 18805, and it is not fanciful to attribute some of the divergences to the presence or absence a century before of ‘eameralism’, the idea of the systematic application to govern- meno administrative routines, ‘ Equally important, the history of political economy in the two coun- trie iverged jst as markedly. Phe development of 1 schoo of historical

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