The Welfare State System and Common

Security: A Global Vision for a Common

Future B. Vivekanandan
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-welfare-state-system-and-common-security-a-glo
bal-vision-for-a-common-future-b-vivekanandan/
The Welfare State
System and Common
Security
A Global Vision for a Common
Future
b. v i v e k a n a n da n
for e wor d by j. p. ro os
The Welfare State System and Common Security
Also by B. Vivekanandan

AS THE MIND UNFOLDS: Issues and Personalities (editor)

BUILDING ON SOLIDARITY: Social Democracy and the New
Millennium (editor)
CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM: An analysis (co-editor)
CONTEMPORARY EUROPE AND SOUTH ASIA (co-editor)
ECHOES IN PARLIAMENT: Madhu Dandavate’s Speeches,
1970–1990 (editor)
GLOBAL VISIONS OF OLOF PALME, BRUNO KREISKY AND WILLY
BRANDT: International Peace and Security, Cooperation and Development
INDIA LOOKS AHEAD: Jayaprakash Narayan Memorial Lectures,
1990–2001 (editor)
INDIA TODAY: Issues Before the Nation (co-editor)
IN RETROSPECT: Reflections on Select Issues in World Politics, 1975–2000
INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL POLITICS: Some Selected Essays
INTERNATIONAL CONCERNS OF EUROPEAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS
PATHFINDERS: Social Democrats of Scandinavia
PROFESSOR M.S. RAJAN: An Outstanding Educationist and
Institution Builder
THE ISSUES OF OUR TIMES (editor)
THE MODERN COMMONWEALTH
THE SHRINKING CIRCLE: The Commonwealth in British Foreign Policy,
1945–1974
WELFARE STATE SYSTEM AND COMMON SECURITY: A Global
Vision for Common Future
WELFARE STATE SYSTEM IN SCANDINAVIA: Lessons for India
WELFARE STATES AND THE FUTURE (co-editor)
WHY SOCIAL DEMOCRACY: Essays by Prof. B. Vivekanandan
 B. Vivekanandan

The Welfare State

System and Common
Security
A Global Vision for a Common Future

Foreword by J.P. Roos

B. Vivekanandan
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi, India

ISBN 978-3-031-05221-7    ISBN 978-3-031-05222-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05222-4
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect
to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 To
PROFESSOR (DR) NIMMI KURIAN
Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
 Foreword

Professor B. Vivekanandan is a very fascinating and many-sided academic;

an Indian from Kerala, a former Chairman of the Centre for American and
West European Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, who
has specialised also in the Nordic Welfare States, and especially the Swedish
variant. He has published several books on various themes around the
Welfare State and Social Democracy, most notably: Pathfinders: Social
Democrats of Scandinavia; Building on Solidarity: Social Democracy and
the New Millennium; Welfare States and the Future; International Concerns
of European Social Democrats; and Global Visions of Olof Palme, Bruno
Kreisky and Willy Brandt.
I was honoured to meet him when I participated in an important
International Seminar on ‘Welfare State Systems’ which he organised at
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, in April 2001. In the Seminar,
we formulated, and agreed on, a New Delhi Declaration on Global Welfare
State, where we propounded a view of the possibility of a global perspec-
tive for the welfare state. In a sense, this book is an extended version of our
Declaration, but not only that: it also propounds a combination of
Common Security and the Welfare State. I am very happy that Professor
Vivekanandan took up the challenge and he is eminently qualified for the
task, both coming from India and being very well acquainted with the
Nordic Welfare State System. He has visited the Nordic countries several
times and knew well the iconic figures of the European Social Democracy—
Olof Palme, Bruno Kreisky, Willy Brandt and Kalevi Sorsa. Thus, the book

vii
viii FOREWORD

covers both the origins of the Welfare State, its present situation and its
future, besides the facets of the Common Security System and its
ramifications.
As Professor Vivekanandan points out, the idea of ‘One World’, and
humanity’s indivisibility, is embedded in the world thought. The earliest
record of it has been found in thousands of years old Indian Upanishads,
which spoke about Advaita (indivisibility of the humanity) and Vasudhaiva
Kudumbakom (Earth is a family), long before the Swedish statesman, Per
Albin Hansson, articulated, in the early 1930s, his Folkhemmet (People’s
Home) for building up a Welfare State in Sweden, and, equally, long
before Wendell Willkie articulated his concept of ‘One World’ in 1943.
They envisaged a world system, in which equality and humanism perme-
ated and enveloped all countries, cultures and Continents. This is Professor
Vivekanandan’s great dream, too.
The book presents the Welfare State System as the best system for the
world in the future. The System’s ‘best’ ranking would become unassail-
able when it gets fortified by the Common Security System, as enunciated
by Olof Palme. The vision is that when universal, institutional Welfare
State Systems in the world get synchronised with the Common Security
System, it would invariably humanise the mechanism of security and social
transformation in the world, since peace and prosperity would reign
supreme everywhere. Human development world over will be at its zenith,
and all parts of the world would become equally delightful living places. It
would make cross-country migrations, in search of better living condi-
tions, redundant and would place humanity on the pedestal of Common
Future. It would also make military build-ups, and military alliances, for
national security unnecessary.
Common Security is one of the two strong and mutually reinforcing
components of the peace structure which this book presents for ensuring
a peaceful ‘Common Future’ and well-being of the humanity; the other
component of it being the Welfare State System. Common Security
System, as an external component of a complementary security architec-
ture, can easily form an integral part of an internal Welfare State System of
countries. The gigantic resources the Common Security System would
invariably release, in real terms, in every country can transform the world
into a peaceful and prosperous Common Home of all peoples. But the
world statesmanship has not yet put such an integrated system in place,
except in one region of northern Europe.
 FOREWORD ix

Thus, the Welfare State in Vivekanandan’s book is very much a Nordic

and European affair. He does discuss critically the European Union from
the welfare state perspective (the EU is not a social, but economic union),
and he presents an interesting parallel. The great origin story of the EU is
that it was a peace project to prevent potential wars between the European
nations, notably Germany and France, which is somewhat questionable.
Professor Vivekanandan proposes that the Welfare State does indeed have
a real peace dimension. I am satisfied that the connection of welfare state
and peace is much stronger than that of the EU and peace, if we look at
recent actions—or rather, inaction—of the EU in the various crises that
have plagued Europe and the world.
However, Professor Vivekanandan does not restrict his overview only
to Europe and the Nordic countries. He offers an extensive view of the
development of the Canadian Welfare State System also. Here he discusses
obstructions to the welfare state and strategies adopted to bring it down.
He analyses convincingly not only the open attempts at dismantling but
also the stealth attacks against the Welfare State in the guise of privatisa-
tion programmes. Unfortunately, this is not only true in Canada but also
in the Nordic countries. He describes Finland as an example partly from
this perspective. So he discusses extensively the effects of the 1990 eco-
nomic crisis on the Finnish Welfare State, as well as the impact of the
European Union, which Finland joined in 1995.
At present, there is great uncertainty about the future of the Welfare
State System. There are the Thatcher-Trump style proponents of an
extreme version of capitalism where the state and especially taxes and
social protection are seen as pure evil; there are those who believe that the
only way to ‘save’ the Welfare State is to cut it down completely, privatise
and incentivise it, leaving only a small part of the system intact; there are
those who think that only privatisation and reorganisation can make the
Welfare State work; and finally there are those who think that the solution
lies in the regeneration of the old basic principles of the Welfare State, with
more democracy, more solidarity and more self-organisation. In this
framework, Professor Vivekanandan is a great optimist who believes that
the classic Welfare State System will prevail, also in countries like India.
For him, the Welfare State System is a peace structure at the national
level which engenders peace, cooperation, harmony and solidarity in soci-
ety. Common Security is another complementary peace structure at the
global level, which also engenders peace, cooperation, harmony and
x FOREWORD

solidarity. The peace dividends of their joint operation at global level are
incalculable. A union of the Welfare State System and the Common
Security System would guarantee peace and prosperity in the world, since
they tend to humanise the mechanism of national security and social jus-
tice in the world. Indeed, the establishment of the Welfare State System in
all parts of the world would form a firm foundation for stable domestic
peace everywhere. With the Common Security System as the bedrock
of peace and cooperation in the World, solidarity approach would become
a natural phenomenon. In the environment, discussion and negotiated
settlement would become natural methods to resolve all contentious issues
in the world.
I fervently hope that he is right, but it would have been interesting to
see Professor Vivekanandan confront the enemies of the Welfare State
more directly. Now he propounds mainly the positive aspects of the
Welfare State System and believes that they will necessarily prevail. I hope
so, from the bottom of my heart.
Taken together, Professor Vivekanandan’s book is a formidable
volume which seeks a radical reorganisation of the global system for
attaining lasting peace, prosperity and happiness in the world. It calls
for attuning the system to the Common Future of mankind, anchored
in the Welfare State System and Common Security. With his deep
knowledge of the flaws in the contemporary international system,
which he acquired through his scholarly research and wide travel dur-
ing the last several decades, Professor Vivekanandan is pointing the
way for attaining enduring peace and prosperity for mankind through
the synchronisation of two positive contemporary streams—the
Welfare State System and the Common Security System.
The book underlines also that, for the well-being of the humanity, it is
high time to rescue the global security system from the clutches of the
deterrence doctrine and place it under a sustainable Common Security
doctrine, befitting the present epoch of the human civilisation. It would
transform the Earth into an arena of peace and cooperation. Refreshingly,
the volume contains a quest for finding peaceful solutions to all conten-
tious issues in the world, besides a reiteration of the imperative need of
de-escalating confrontations in the world, through negotiations and coop-
eration among the political leaderships across the world.
As the world is becoming more globalised, it is imperative that people’s
welfare and global security are also placed in a more positive frame which
ensures equal sharing of the total welfare in the world.
 FOREWORD xi

Therefore, this impressive book, which puts forth practical political

ideas, valid for restructuring the world in a just manner, is of great signifi-
cance for the future well-being of the humanity. It is also about the bright
future of the Common Security and the Welfare State System and their
fundamental principles. It is a great basic text for all of us who believe in
the Welfare State and its potential. I wholeheartedly recommend it for
everybody, even those who do not readily believe in the bright future
Professor Vivekanandan portrays for us.

Professor Emeritus of Social Policy J. P. Roos

University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland
Former President of the European
Sociological Association
Paris, France
 Preface and Acknowledgements

This book is born out of a conviction that there is a fundamental flaw

in the structuring of the present-day world and that it needs a radical
restructuring to attain genuine peace, security and prosperity in the world.
The right way to attain them is to rebuild the world into a collective of the
Welfare State System, complemented, worldwide, by the Common
Security System.
The 1970s and 1980s witnessed the flowering of brilliant visionary
ideas in the minds of renowned social democrats like Willy Brandt, Bruno
Kreisky, Olof Palme, Michael Manley and Gro-Harlem Brundtland. Those
visionary ideas of them got firmed up in the form of Recommendations
of International Commissions/Committees which they chaired. Brandt
Commission Report on North-South Co-operation (1979), Palme
Commission Report on Common Security (1982), Global Challenge
Report of Michael Manley (1985), Brundtland Commission Report on
Our Common Future (1987) and the Kreisky Commission Report on
Employment Issues (1989) were the ones which articulated those vision-
ary ideas. All these ideas were advanced, primarily to pursue them, within
a larger framework of International Solidarity and Co-operation to estab-
lish a New International Economic Order (NIEO) and a fruitful North-­
South partnership. The general contention is that, if these constructive
and valid ideas were implemented in the right earnest, during the 1980s
itself, by now they would have led the world to become a collective of
greater equality, justice, welfare, security and peace. Such a consummation
would have saved the world from many contemporary problems, includ-
ing those of the refugees, xenophobia and chauvinism.

xiii
xiv PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

But, the ascendancy of Conservative governments in some major devel-

oped countries, like the United States, Britain and Germany, in the 1980s
blocked the pursuit of any international solidarity project. President
Ronald Reagan, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chancellor
Helmut Kohl synchronised their opposition to the launching of any kind
of international solidarity project. With their lining up in the world scene
against all international solidarity projects, the Social Democratic Vision,
contained in the aforesaid reports, remained frozen since then. Their push
for free market solutions to human problems proved detrimental to the
solidarity approach embedded in the NIEO and the North-South partner-
ship. In that vein, the Cancun summit of 1981 was a futile exercise.
Although the vision, adumbrated the Reports of Commissions/
Committees, chaired by various social democratic leaders, remained dor-
mant since 1980s, the validity of the global political vision, it presented,
has never been lost. Subsequent regressive developments in the world—
like the neo-liberal globalisation, the yawning gap between the quality of
life in the rich and poor countries and their peoples in the world, the
alarming level of acquisition of arms in the world capable to destroy the
humanity many times over, the springing up of environmental problems,
like the climate change, global warming and the depletion of natural
resources in the world and so on—make it imperative to re-introduce the
vision envisaged by social democrats in the 1980s, emphasising the dyna-
mism it holds to ensure the security and welfare of everyone in the world
and to point the way of how to attain it.
Despite the fact that the solidarity approach formed the hub of debates
on the NIEO, North-South partnership, Common Security and so on, in
the 1980s, to ensure peace, human welfare and security, its non-­
implementation at that time has not diminished the validity of the vision
embedded in it. As the adverse effects of its non-implementation, in the
1980s, are becoming more and more stark today, than even before, time
has come to re-introduce that vision for implementation to ensure the
safety, security and welfare of the whole humanity. That constitutes a
prime objective of this book.
In this book, I have analysed and presented the Welfare State System as
the best universal system for the world in future. Its ‘best’ score becomes
indisputable when it is complemented by the Common Security System,
as enunciated and articulated by Olof Palme, former prime minister of
Sweden. The perspective has been developed from my several studies of
Welfare State Systems of Europe, America and Asia during the last
 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xv

three-and-a-half decades and of how the system in general performed, as

an agent of change, in a co-operative setting in the Scandinavian region,
and also the change it effected in the psychology of the people there from
a self-centred mould to one of peace, compassion, social responsibility,
mutual respect and solidarity. The vision is that when institutional, univer-
sal Welfare State Systems in the world work in unison with the Common
Security System, it would produce marvellous results for humanity as a
whole, since peace and prosperity would reign supreme under it. It would
make military build-ups and military alliances for national security unnec-
essary. Human development will be at its apex and all parts of the world
would become equally liveable places. It would place humanity in a lofty
frame of Common Future and make people’s migration from one country
to another, in search of better living conditions, unnecessary. It will also
mark the end of the xenophobia-based politics everywhere.
In the book, I have used terms ‘Scandinavia’ and ‘Nordic’ interchange-
ably keeping in view the overlapping in their connotations. At times, I
have used them together with an oblique mark in between (Scandinavian/
Nordic).
The creation of a compassionate, prosperous and contented world soci-
ety, free from wars and conflicts, is the objective that permeates this book.
Common good of humanity is the goal. In such a new society, there will
be no centre or periphery. All will be at the same level. All would get a fair
share of the bounty of the Earth equally and equitably. The perspective is
that since all communities in the planet are interdependent, they must
work together in a spirit of solidarity. Peace and welfare of all people is a
profound concern. It underlines that international cooperation and a soli-
darity approach are a moral imperative, as well as a political, social and
economic necessity. All humanity must fairly share the bounty of the world.
This study analyses the dynamics of the benefits flowing from the inter-
twined edifice of the Welfare State System and Common Security. It may
be seen that there is a profound complementarity between the Welfare
State System and the Common Security System enunciated by Olof Palme,
since they reinforce each other as stable peace structures. And, it is envis-
aged to create a new society based on equality and equity and to usher in
an era of peace and prosperity in the world. Therefore, it is imperative that
due attention is paid to this complementarity and to its impact on the
long-term welfare of humanity in a frame of common future. Moreover, a
Welfare State System, enjoined by the Common Security System, will
mark the unfolding of a new type of international relations based on the
xvi PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

unity of humanity’s mutual needs and aspirations. Its sense of direction

would be the unity of the human conditions. It will make the planet Earth
a small place comprising only neighbourhoods. How a development like
global warming instantly envelops whole humanity would testify its valid-
ity. It will also expose the insanity of annually spending about $2 trillion
for a constantly bulging arms garbage in the world under the garb of
deterrence doctrine and impel leaderships to discontinue that policy and
approach. Indeed, it would make one to concede that humanity is one and
inseparable—as the Indian Upanishads have proclaimed thousands of
years ago.
Prevention of another war in the world is an objective pursued in this
book, by way of forestalling the growth of aggressive nationalism. If the
Serbian nationalism, coupled with Austrian intransigence ignited the First
World War, the aggressive nationalism of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini
ignited the Second World War. But it reached full circle, when those who
pursued aggressive nationalism, and ignited world wars, had disgraceful
endings. After exterminating six million people in gas chambers, Hitler
had ended his own life in a bunker. The dead body of his Italian counter-
part, Benito Mussolini, was found hanging upside down on a wayside in
Milan. The lesson to be learnt from these disastrous developments is that
we should do everything possible to prevent the rise of aggressive nation-
alism in future anywhere in the world. This book is pointing the way to
forestall its rise.
A void in the Palme Commission Report is that it spoke more about
organising Common Security as a universal external policy approach,
without suggesting a universal domestic system for all countries, which
would complement and keep countries on that path only. This book fills
that void by bringing forth a universal Welfare State System to comple-
ment and sustain a Common Security System in the world. People every-
where should live in dignity and peace, that they should lead a life worth
living. A blend of Welfare State System internally and Common Security
System externally would ensure it globally.
The vision contained in this book is not fanciful. It is realistic, because
of its practical potential for attaining international solidarity, based on
cooperation, for the welfare of all. An objective of this book is to help the
formulation of public policies. The author believes that we are living in an
era of great opportunity to change the course of history, peacefully, by
responding constructively to various challenges today, in the light of var-
ied experiences humanity has passed through hitherto. Therefore, the
 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xvii

proposals made in this book are aimed to become programmes of state

policies of all governments in the world. Hence, this book is targeted to
draw the attention of policy makers, academics and the discerning general
public who are interested in the subject all over the world.
My tryst with Scandinavian/Nordic countries since 1985 and various
studies I made on them and their people were a great inspiration for writ-
ing this book. Indeed, Scandinavia has been the springboard of great via-
ble ideas in support of the One World concept and has been their testing
ground during the last 100 years. I infer that this is because of the secure
environment this region has provided to its people, by its novel and salu-
tary move to construct Welfare State Systems in all countries of the region.
As a result, talented and socially conscious people in the region began to
position their future in global terms. The Norwegian prime minister and
an international stateswoman, Gro-Harlem Brundtland, presented a
Scientific Report on The Common Future of humanity. And, the Swedish
prime minister and an international statesman, Olof Palme, presented a
Scientific Report stipulating Common Security for the whole world. A
prime minister of Finland and a world statesman, Kalevi Sorsa, led the
drive for global disarmament, through the Socialist International
Disarmament Advisory Council. And they are lodestars from Scandinavia.
Their contributions to the development of a global vision have been
explained in my earlier books: Pathfinders: Social Democrats of Scandinavia
(New Delhi & Bombay, Somaiya, 1991); International Concerns of
European Social Democrats (London & New York, Macmillan and St.
Martin’s, 1997); and Global Visions of Olof Palme, Bruno Kreisky and Willy
Brandt: International Peace and Security, Co-operation and Development
(London & New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
This book has been written with the help of a large body of material I
have collected during my many visits to various European countries,
Canada, Australia and the United States. Besides, I held interviews and
discussions with many well-informed persons on the subject on various
occasions. The two international seminars I organised at Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi, on ‘Social Democracy in the Newly Emerging
Global Order’ (1995) and on the ‘Welfare State Systems’ (2001), with
expert participants from all over the world, have also provided me with
opportunities to discuss with them on the subject. The papers presented
at these seminars have been published under the titles, Building on
Solidarity: Social Democracy and the New Millennium (New Delhi,
Lancer’s Books, 2000), edited by me, and the Welfare States and the
xviii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Future (London & New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), edited by me

and Professor Nimmi Kurian.
My study of the Welfare State System in Sweden has been made during
my repeated visits to that country since 1985. Similarly, my studies on the
Welfare State Systems in Canada and Finland have been made during my
visiting professorships in the Carleton University, Canada, and in the
Helsinki University, Finland, respectively. I am grateful to the Department
of Social Policy, Helsinki University, and to the Institute of Political
Economy, Carleton University, for enabling me to undertake these stud-
ies. Similarly I am grateful to the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi;
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Bonn; Indo-European Research Foundation,
New Delhi; the Swedish Institute, Stockholm; the Shastri Indo-Canadian
Institute in New Delhi and Calgary (Canada); and the Helsinki University,
Finland; for funding my visits to Sweden, Canada and Finland for under-
taking these studies. The chapter on the Nordic Welfare States is a revised
version of my plenary presentation at the 5th Annual Conference of the
European Sociology Association held in Helsinki. The chapter on Finland
is an updated reformatted version of my article which appeared in
International Studies, New Delhi, in 2011. The chapter on Canada is a
slightly improved version of my paper included earlier in my edited vol-
ume Welfare States and the Future, published by Palgrave Macmillan,
London, in 2005.
I have used many libraries for writing this book. I am thankful to the
staff of various libraries which I have used, during my visits for the pur-
pose, for their cooperation and assistance. In this connection, I would like
to specially thank the staff of the libraries of the Swedish Labour Movement,
of the Research Department of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and
of the Olof Palme International Centre, all in Stockholm; the library of
the Uppsala University, Uppsala; the Library of the Department of Social
Policy, Helsinki University, Helsinki; and the Library of the Institute of
Political Economy, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, besides the
Library of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
During the course of my visits abroad for the purpose, I held many
interviews and discussions on the subject, with a large number of eminent
personalities and experts on the subject. In this context, I would like to
record my profound gratitude to Mr Kalevi Sorsa, former prime minister
of Finland; Prof. J.P. Roos, Department of Social Policy, University of
Helsinki; Mr Sten Andersen, former Swedish Foreign Minister; Mr Sverker
 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xix

Aström, Olof Palme’s Cabinet Secretary; Dr Klaus Eklund, Olof Palme’s

Economic Adviser; Mr Jan Eliasson, Olof Palme’s Special Assistant; Dr
Gudmund Larsson, Director L.O. Research Department, Stockholm; Mr
Pierre Schori, Under Secretary, Foreign Affairs, Sweden; Mr Jan Erik
Norling, Trade Unionist, Stockholm; Dr Klaus Misgeld, Labour Movement
Archives and Library, Stockholm; Mr Sven Eric Söder and Mr Roger
Hällhag, SDP functionaries, Stockholm; Prof. B. Gustafsson, Uppsala
University, Uppsala; Mr Gunnar Stenarv, International Secretary of the
Swedish SDP; Mr Enn Kokk, Swedish SDP’s Programme Commission
Secretary, Stockholm; Mr Gunnar Fredriksson, Editor, Aftonbladet,
Stockholm; Mr Pentti Vänäinen, former Secretary General, Socialist
International, London; Mr Kari Tapiola, International Secretary, SAK,
Helsinki; Mr Jouko Elo, International Secretary, Finnish SDP; Ms
Marianne Laxen and Ms Tuula Hatainen, former General Secretaries of
the Finnish Social Democratic Women, Helsinki; Ms Ulpu Iivari, General
Secretary, Finnish SDP, Helsinki; Ms Helena Laukko, Executive Director,
International Solidarity Foundation, Helsinki; Mr Heikki Räisänen,
Research Director, VATT, Helsinki; Dr Jukka Pekkarinen, Director,
Ministry of Finance, Helsinki; Mr, Markku Jääskeläinen, European
Secretary, SAK, Finland; Dr Mikko Kautto, Stakes, Helsinki; Mr Antti
Suvanto, Head of Economic Department, Bank of Finland; Ms Maria
Kaisa Aula, Centre Party MP, Finland; Professor Risto Eräsaari, Department
of Social Policy, University of Helsinki; Ms Kaci Kullman Five, Deputy
Chairman, Norwegian Conservative Party, and later, Chairperson of the
Nobel Prize Committee, Oslo; Prof. Wallace Clement, Director, Institute
of Political Economy, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada; Prof.
V. Subramaniam, Distinguished Professor, Carleton University, Ottawa;
Joanne Roulston, Policy Adviser, National Council for Welfare, Canada;
Mr Gills Seguin, a senior official in the Ministry of Human Resource
Development in Ottawa, Canada; and Dr Juho Saari, Ministerial Adviser,
Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finland, Helsinki. I am grateful to
all these eminent persons for granting me interviews with them and for
sparing their valuable time for meeting me and for sharing their thoughts
with me on various issues examined in this book.
My special thanks are due to Professor J.P. Roos, Professor Emeritus,
Helsinki University, Finland, who has honoured this book with his scintil-
lating ‘Foreword’.
xx PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am thankful also to Professor D. Maya, former Principal, University

College, Trivandrum, for going through the manuscript of this book and
for making editorial changes in it. In addition, I am thankful to Ms
A. Rajalekshmi for efficiently typing out this manuscript.
I am grateful to my publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, London, for
publishing this book in the most elegant way. Also, I am grateful to Ms
Sarah Roughley, Editorial Director, and to Mr Nicholas Barclay, Mr
Madison Allums and Mr Stewart Beale, Senior Commissioning Editors,
Palgrave Macmillan, London, for their excellent support.
And, finally, my profound gratitude to my wife Vimala, and daughters
Nimmi and Jayashree, who have repeatedly suffered my absence while I
was on my research visits abroad for writing this book.

New Delhi, India B. Vivekanandan

29 September 2021
 Contents

1 The Perspective  1

2 Swedish Welfare State Model 35

3 Welfare State System in Finland 63

4 Welfare State System in Canada119

5 Common Security163

6 Scandinavian/Nordic
 Welfare States: An Approximate
International Peace and Security Model189

7 The Way Ahead207

Bibliography245

Index251

xxi
 About the Author

B. Vivekanandan is former chairman of the

Centre for American and West European
Studies at the School of International Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
He was a visiting professor at Carleton
University, Canada, and the University of
Helsinki, Finland. He has also been a visiting
fellow at the University of Konstanz, Germany;
the Karl Renner Institute, Austria; and the Olof
Palme International Centre, Sweden.
He is the lone Indian recipient of the highest
honour, Honorary Doctorate of Social Sciences
(D.S.Sc.(h.c.)), of the University of Helsinki, in the 350 years’ history of
this award. He has authored, co-authored, edited and co-­edited 36 books
on international relations, foreign and security policy, social democracy,
welfare state systems and Scandinavia, which have been published in India,
Britain and the United States. He has also written many research articles
in prestigious international journals including Orbis, Asian Survey, The
Round Table, Asia-Pacific Community, International Studies, India
Quarterly, Indian Journal of Political Science and Social Science in
Perspective.

xxiii
 CHAPTER 1

The Perspective

Why a Welfare State and Common Security Vision?

A peaceful, contented ‘One World’ is the goal. Welfare State System and
Common Security are the means. There was a time when the concept
‘One World’ was seen as utopian. This is no more the case. Various devel-
opments in the world today are making the ‘One World’ approach a neces-
sity and are leading humanity in that direction.

The One World

From time immemorial, the idea of ‘One World’ and humanity’s indivisi-
bility remained embedded in world thought. The earliest record of it is
found in the Indian philosophical thoughts like the Vedas and the
Upanishads. Concepts like Advaita (non-duality) and Vasudhaiva
Kudumbakom (Earth is a human family) epitomised them.

The Advaita (Indivisibility)

The Advaita philosophy which remained dormant in the Indian
Upanishads for thousands of years was retrieved and resurrected by an
Indian sage, Sri Sankaracharya, in the eighth century AD and placed it in
the world of public knowledge. In the last quarter of the nineteenth cen-
tury, Swami Vivekananda, the world renowned Indian sage, elaborated the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
B. Vivekanandan, The Welfare State System and Common Security,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05222-4_1
2 B. VIVEKANANDAN

content of Advaita for the benefit of humanity. The quintessence of his

elaboration was that all humans are equals, and are brothers and sisters
springing from the same abode and returning to it after their life spans.
That is an unceasing process, he held, continuing from the origins of
humanity. It has also underlined the indivisibility of humanity.1 Similarly
embedded in ancient Indian philosophy is the concept (expressed in
Sanskrit) Vasudhaiva Kudumbakom (Vasudha = Earth + Aiva = one +
Kudumbakom = family). It adumbrates that all people are relatives and are
members of the same family. These were concepts which remained lode-
stars in the Indian philosophical thought, millennia before the Swedish
Social Democratic leader, Per Albin Hansson, enunciated his concept
Folkhemmet (People’s Home) for building up a Welfare State System in
Sweden, in early 1930s, and similarly before Wendell Willkie conceptual-
ised his idea of ‘One World’ in 1943.2 They visualised a system in which
equality and humanism pervaded, and encompassed all countries, cultures
and Continents.
The ongoing numerous developments in the world have brought the
concept ‘One World’, into the realm of reality. They lead the humanity to
increasingly think and plan in global terms, rather than in national or even
in Continental terms. For example, the ongoing global warming phenom-
enon does not recognise national or Continental boundaries, and its
impact does not stop at the borders of countries and Continents. Therefore,
it is imperative that people and countries should think in global terms for
sustenance and survival, rather than in national, regional or in Continental
terms. What Jean Paul Sartre observed in 1965, “when one day our human
kind becomes full grown, it will not define itself as the sum total of the
whole world’s inhabitants, but as the intimate unity of their mutual needs”,
is increasingly becoming true.3 As a measure to build up such a new inter-
national solidarity-based human society, a famous contemporary American
Socialist statesman, Senator Bernie Sanders, has called for the establish-
ment of a ‘Progressive International’, which would lead “an international
progressive movement that mobilises behind a vision of shared prosperity,
security and dignity for all people, and that addresses the massive global
inequality that exists, not only in wealth but in political power”.4 What he
envisages is a global solidarity approach to address vital transnational
problems jointly together. It is high time for the World to think in terms
of the unity of the human condition.
 1 THE PERSPECTIVE 3

Welfare State
In comparison with all other socio-economic and political systems experi-
mented hitherto in the world, the cradle-to-the-grave Welfare State System
institutionalised in Sweden, and other Scandinavian countries, is the best
one. This is because the system is universal and is steeped in politics of
cooperation and solidarity in dealing with everyday needs and aspirations
of all people in the country equitably, without discrimination. The system
has become stable because its benefactors and beneficiaries are the same.
The transparency attached to its funding and operational aspects has made
it a way of life. Its funding comes mostly from the tax-pool, and the provi-
sion of services and support to people is made through the local govern-
ments and organised in a simple way. It has reduced inequality in society
and has ensured an equal and high standard of living for everybody in the
country—individuals and families. Under the system, pooling of people’s
risks and their remedies, in a solidarity frame, is central to it. If collective
solutions to individual risks are available, there is no need for individual
insurance. It has promoted a political culture in Scandinavia in favour of
consensus and compromise, away from the conflict-ridden confrontation.
It has affirmed the state’s role in ensuring the well-being of all people and
reduce the income disparity. Equality and universalism are the basic fea-
tures of the frame.
Today the Welfare State System is planned and executed with the nation
state as a basic unit. But, in a constantly shrinking world, this framework
needs enlargement, encompassing regions and Continents, because basi-
cally the human needs everywhere in the world are more or less the same.
In some states, with semi-welfare state features, social security, social
insurance and social assistance are extended through a mix partly of public
and partly of private arrangements—from state-sponsored collective solu-
tions, to partially private insurance-based individual solutions. Many post-­
Communist east European countries are egged on to follow such mixed
components in the provision of social security. Thus, there are such varia-
tions in the institutional set-up regarding the provision of social security in
different countries. Pension insurance reforms in some countries are
attuned to partial privatisation of pension provisions. But, such variations
need to be removed in a universal long-lasting future set-up. In a benign
Welfare State, there should be no room for private insurance, so that social
protection is insulated from middlemen’s exploitation and inequality
4 B. VIVEKANANDAN

perpetuation. The moral and ethical dimensions of the Welfare State

System should be preserved. It should be intertwined with its re-distribu-
tive objective.
In the new global Welfare State System, the role of the state, public
sector, family and the market respectively in it, should be clearly defined.
Least reliance on market is the norm envisaged in the welfare state provi-
sions. The measure to achieve income equality should be pursued through
a steeply progressive income-tax system and a solidarity wage policy.
The Welfare State System exemplifies a dynamic relationship between the
state and the citizen—a constructive relationship, which has epitomised in
the form of ‘cradle-to-the-grave’ Welfare State System, established in
Sweden and other Scandinavian countries. Under it, the relationship
between the state and the citizen begins, as soon as a child is born when the
mother receives a government sealed box, containing baby clothes and
other items needed for a new born, along with a child allowance from that
day, and ends with the government funding the funeral/burial expenditure
of the person, when he/she breathes his/her last. No other system in the
world protects its citizens universally in a similar way, as the Welfare State
System does. It equips and assists people for the battle of life.
The new system should be characterised by compulsory re-distributive
taxation, compulsory schooling, income transfer in the form of family sup-
port, free social assistance to the elderly and invalid persons, child allow-
ances, unemployment benefits, various pensions and so on, some of which
are in the form of cash payments. Pertinent to note is that the private
market system cannot compensate unemployment situations. Private
unemployment insurance cannot also meet it. Therefore, the state inter-
vention becomes imperative in the provision of unemployment allowances.
Making proper provisions for it, by the state/government, is the right way.
A Welfare State System connotes that a benign, resourceful, democratic
state would assume more or less direct responsibility for the welfare of
everyone in the state, without discrimination. It is a benign state-led
peaceful movement towards equality in a society. The system has several
salients—provision of cash benefits, free education, free healthcare and
social assistance, decent housing and so on—which are integral parts of
the State’s activity. Modes of their delivery are also state regulated, and are
done generally through local governments. In most cases the state pro-
duces services in the public sector and are given free of cost universally.
Various pensions and allowances, healthcare, education and so on are
organised and delivered that way.
 1 THE PERSPECTIVE 5

 State-Centric System
A
A Welfare State System is state centric. A benign, democratic state-centric
institution assumes the main responsibility of assuring universal welfare
provisions for all its residents, irrespective of their age, gender, socio-­
economic status and family background. It categorically rejects the trickle-­
down theory, and makes the state responsible for distributive justice in
society. Pertinently, Esping-Andersen’s Welfare State System gives great
importance to distributive justice. Besides provision of entitled social ser-
vices, it also takes ideological positions, pertaining to the roles of family
and society as welfare service providers and recipients. It makes appropri-
ate institutional arrangements, at various levels, to ensure decent living
conditions for all in the country, and provides them with needed social
services, and makes cash transfers to those institutions to meet the expen-
diture. Therefore, the State’s responsibility for welfare provisions is a key
element. While doing so, it also plays a distributive and re-distributive role
to promote equality in the living conditions in society. It may be noted
that, in a Welfare State, a decent standard of living is a recognised social
right. In the words of Harold Wilensky:

The essence of welfare state is government protected minimum standards of

income, nutrition, health and safety, education, and housing assured to
every citizen as a social right, not as charity. The core programs of the wel-
fare state, often subsumed under the general heading of ‘Social Security’,
have taken the form of social insurance against the basic risks of modern life:
job injury, sickness, unemployment, disability, old age, and income loss due
to illness, shifts in family composition, or other random shocks. … Because
the welfare state is about shared risks crosscutting generations, localities,
classes, ethnic and racial groups, and educational levels, it is a major source
of social integration in modern society.5

Therefore, the fulcrum of the Welfare State System is a benign demo-

cratic state, which functions as a provider and a regulator of welfare ben-
efits to the people. The system empowers the state to raise adequate
resources equitably from the community, to meet the operational cost of
the Welfare State System. The needed income transfers are done through
taxation and the re-distribution is done in the form of pensions, allow-
ances and social assistance. The system is anchored in a social policy, inter-
twined with the socio-economic and political life of the whole community.
Indeed, it is a new way of life which blends humanism, solidarity and
6 B. VIVEKANANDAN

distributive justice on the basis of equality. Therefore, its moral and ethical
appeal is also quite broad and explicit. Indeed, the system engenders a new
ethos, conductive for building up a peaceful, cooperative and solidarity-­
based relationship among peoples, cultures and Continents. It conveys a
ringing message that, in a shrinking world, the range of the construction
of welfare state should go far beyond the precincts of nation states and
Continents, and envelop the whole humanity—the equitable right-­holders
of the Earth’s bountiful resources.
The Welfare State System, and the social policy entailing it, is all about
the construction of an ethically sound and value-based, good society,
bereft of middleman’s exploitation. It is also about how humanity should
be organised with the objective of building up a more equitable society,
based on human solidarity. It would blend the moral and material factors
which condition the day-to-day life of people across the world. It is inter-
twined with distributive justice ad valorem in societies, and rejects the
charity-based, means-tested discriminatory approach to welfare support.
That apart, the Welfare State System cannot be comprehended merely in
terms of the social rights it grants to its people, and the provisions it makes
for their realisation. It has to be viewed also in the context of the whole
gamut of its interlocking relationships with family and society as benefac-
tors and beneficiaries of the system. Befitting the present stage of human
civilisation, its range of application in modern times will have to transcend
national, regional and Continental boundaries, and move up towards the
construction of ‘One World’, attuned to the ‘Common Future’, envisaged
by Gro-Harlem Brundtland of Norway and the Common Security envis-
aged by Olof Palme of Sweden. It is time for policy makers world over to
go beyond the national Welfare State System, which the Danish Sociologist
Gøsta Esping-Andersen envisaged, and make it a global system encom-
passing all countries and Continents.6

Basic Features
A basic feature of the Welfare State System is the state-guaranteed univer-
sal social rights, which uphold the social rights of every body to have free
healthcare, free education, gainful employment, a decent house to live and
provisions to meet various contingencies in life. It ensures the well-being
of all its inhabitants through an institutionalised, government-operated
social security and social assistance, in a frame of solidarity and coopera-
tion. Indeed, the state is obliged to ensure a decent living standard to all
its inhabitants through various social security measures. It pools risks and
 1 THE PERSPECTIVE 7

remedies of the whole population, and compensates the interruption of

primary earnings due to contingencies like unemployment, sickness, work
injury, disability, old age and even business failure, through various substi-
tute income schemes to meet indispensable expenditures in the house-
hold. The objective is to ensure a stable, egalitarian, household income of
families, and to strengthen social integration. In addition, the system
extends tax-funded public services free of cost to all socio-economic
groups in the country equitably. In all such situations, the government
performs the role of both a provider and a regulator. It regulates the qual-
ity and quantity of the provision. Cumulatively, the system is pointing the
way for humanising societies, by providing people with a psychological
security, which would serve as a stable positive influence in their general
social behaviour and attitude, away from the track of selfishness.

A Steeply Progressive Income Tax

A natural process in the welfare state construction is the simultaneous
systematic process of levelling up of the lower strata and the levelling
down of the upper strata of the society, in a general frame of equality and
distributive justice. The objective is the reduction of inequality and pro-
motion of equality. It is done, to a great extent, through the institutionali-
sation of a steeply progressive income-tax system. Experience in Nordic
countries shows that such measures have considerably blurred the class
and social distinctions, and promoted mutual respect among the people in
welfare states. In consequence, the welfare state institutions have reduced
inequality and banished poverty in those societies. It has become a way
of life.

Public Sector Dominance

In general, the public sector is the dominant instrument of the Welfare
State System. It has provided more employment for women. Universal
benefits would override the targeted, means-tested and stigmatised bene-
fits. Full employment, free medical care, free education and so on for
everybody in the country are top priorities.
Conceptually, and in practice, the Welfare State System belongs to the
overlapping circles of three disciplines—politics, economics and sociology.
Experience of countries, which have adopted the Welfare State System,
during the last eight decades, testifies that the Welfare State System is
8 B. VIVEKANANDAN

beneficial to society in every way. In that respect, the system’s record is

salutary. The political elite articulates new universal social policies and
ensures their economic viability.

Social Integration
The Welfare State System promotes social integration in a big way. People
fund the system through tax payments, and avail gladly its benefits as well,
in return, as their social right. Therefore, all people are its benefactors and,
at the same time, beneficiaries too, which ensures the system’s sustainabil-
ity and popular support. They know that the benefits they get from it are
not charity but are their social right, and are unrelated to their socio-­
economic position. In a welfare state, all problems have cooperative and
pooling solutions. The state-organised pooling of risks and remedies is the
best way to promote social solidarity. Indeed, social solidarity approach
and pooling of risks and their remedies is the best cost-cutting method
as well.

Why a Welfare State System?

Welfare State System is the best form of social system the world statesmen
and humanists have ever articulated, and established, in different parts of
the world, during the last nine decades, with the objective of solving prob-
lems of social inequality and social exclusion. It is a system which would
fortify society’s self-defence against social disruptions, based on inequality
in societies. Under the system, the welfare state provisions are based on
universal principle. For social inclusion, the universality of the system is
essential. Indeed, this approach would integrate the richer sections of soci-
ety with the collective forms of welfare, and widen its popular support
base. Record shows that universal benefits, like free healthcare, family
allowances, free education, free social services and so on, enjoy wide popu-
lar support.
The Welfare State System is not about profit and loss in economic/
market terms, but is about building up a new society based on equality and
distributive justice. Moreover, it is a civilisational project, by which a dem-
ocratic state would re-distribute resources, so that the poorest in the
country can also enjoy a degree of civilisation, which would otherwise be
a preserve of the rich. In 1931, during the Great Depression, R.H. Tawney
envisioned the welfare state as “a strategy for equality”. His focus then was
 1 THE PERSPECTIVE 9

on healthcare, education and provision of economic security, in the case of

work incapacity resulting from old age, sickness and unemployment. He
wanted that the public policy should be directed to bring about reduction
of income inequality as well.7 John Rawls, in his celebrated book, A Theory
of Justice, said that a society should be judged on the basis of how it treats
those who are worse off.8 Record shows that the Welfare State Systems
have successfully raised the life situation of the worse off in societies.
In a global welfare state vision, the primary focus is on how to organ-
ise, how to transfer resources on a global scale, for local dispersals, and
how to make services available everywhere, on a more or less equal basis,
across Continents. Therefore, there is need of an international organisa-
tion, like the ILO for example, to discuss a global welfare state-building
strategy.

A Conflict Preventing Mechanism

The Welfare State System is an effective conflict preventing mechanism.
Therefore, wherever the system got established, fully or partially, it is dif-
ficult to dismantle it. All advanced democracies have, fully or partially,
accepted the principles of welfare statism, which has a state-centred
approach. Under it, a benign democratic state would assume the respon-
sibility of the provision of social security for all its citizens. Experience has
shown that the political dominance of social democrats would provide an
ideal political setting to build up Welfare State Systems. This is because
the social democratic ideology, based on equality, freedom, democracy,
justice and solidarity, would provide the most fertile field for the flower-
ing of the Welfare State System. Indeed, in the establishment of the
Welfare State System in the world, the role of social democratic ideology
is quite conspicuous. The social democrats took the policy initiative to
build up welfare states. They gave a big emphasis on public provision of
social services, and on re-distribution through a tax and transfer system.
The stress was not on diversity, but on the unity of people in the world.
The system is an effective response to the urge of human beings for equal-
ity and equal justice. It makes the state recognise people’s social rights,
and addresses the vexing question of income inequality in society.
Marginalisation of the programme of welfare state construction should
end, and, from the periphery, it should be brought to the core of national
and international agenda.
10 B. VIVEKANANDAN

Full-Employment Policy
Full employment is a policy pursued by social democrats to establish and
stabilise the Welfare State System. It is imperative to follow that policy
even in an era of high technology, which potentially provides new employ-
ment a shrinking space. It is being assessed that one robot destroys 20
jobs. However, whether, full employment should be kept up by ensuring
income stability, by reducing the working hours, would need high-level
political decisions, taken on the basis of consensus politics. There is an
expected massive shift of jobs in future from the manufacturing sector to
the service sector. How to reconcile it with the Welfare State System is a
big challenge before the policy makers world over. A jobless growth situa-
tion would demand a more revolutionary re-distribution system. However,
in all circumstances, the Welfare State System should pursue a full-employ-
ment policy as a key element of it. It means that all countries should follow
employment-friendly economic and technology policies.

A System of Distributive Justice

A Welfare State System is steered as a prosperous system, nurtured by high
production, and distributive justice, based on equality and equal justice,
and solidarity. No doubt, societies all over the world have the potential to
achieve the needed economic prosperity through a massive transfer of
resources and know-how at both micro and macro levels. The planet Earth
is abundant in resources, though they remain dispersed unevenly among
Continents. As these inter-Continental resources are complementary, a
solidarity approach, coupled with a sharing mentality, is the right way to
build up the world as a ‘Common Home’ of the human family. As it
moves up in the direction of building up a ‘One World’, sectarian
approaches would find themselves in a shrinking space in future. The
Scandinavian welfare states have shown that welfare state economy is
equally a productive economy. It is also supportive of growth, though it
does not support a jobless growth per se. It recognises the organic inter-
locking nature of production, distributive justice and consumption, which
results in welfare expansion.
How the social support system of the welfare state is intertwined with
the day-to-day life of ordinary people has been explained by Professor
Joakim Palme of Uppsala University. He said:
 1 THE PERSPECTIVE 11

The social support system is an instrument for helping individuals to deal

with projects in life that are common to all of us: a chance to get a proper
education in order to find a job. Then to actually find a job. To form a fam-
ily. To have children. To combine family life with participation in the labour
market, and in society at large. To be economically secure in case of expo-
sure to unemployment and ill-health. To get a pension in old age. To receive
the necessary social services and care when physical abilities are decreasing.
In modern society, these problems cannot be solved by family and the mar-
ket alone.9

A Higher Form of Social System

There are factors which place the Welfare State System at the top among
the social systems. As Lindbeck explains:

It is easy to visualise how welfare-state policies, under favourable circum-

stances, may generate virtuous circles of reduced poverty, better neighbour-
hoods, less street crimes, improved health among low-income groups, the
accumulation of widely distributed human capital, increased labour produc-
tivity, and higher labour force participation rates for women and various
ethnic minorities, and all this contributes to an expanded tax base, which
facilitates the financing of the welfare state programmes in the first place. We
may also speculate that welfare state policies contribute to improved social
coherence, and perhaps even to greater tolerance in the population for con-
tinual re-allocation of resources that characterise a dynamic market econ-
omy, and that it reinforces the legitimacy, and, hence, the support of the
welfare state among those who do not perceive much direct benefit to them-
selves. It is largely because of various virtuous long-term consequences of
welfare state arrangements that I have often described the modern welfare
state as a triumph of Western Civilization.10

Globalisation and Its Impact

Though globalisation as an idea has provided a global framework for poli-
cies, the economic and financial globalisation, led by World Bank’s ‘three
pillar model’ of privatisation of certain welfare state provisions, had a neg-
ative impact. For example, the Pension Insurance reform (privatisation) is
a World Bank programme, which is not conducive for an ideal welfare
state. It is aimed at reducing the ambience of the state in the pension
schemes and to make room for private middlemen in the system.
12 B. VIVEKANANDAN

The impact of globalisation on the global welfare state vision is both

positive and negative. In a positive sense, it has signalled the people to
view social problems and their solutions also from a global perspective and
approach. National social policies are being tested against a globally set
benchmark provided by model systems elsewhere. But, in a negative sense,
since the promotion of a global social policy is not a priority agenda of the
present globalisation, the social aspect of human development worldwide
remains an unattended sector. The priorities set for its pursuit are eco-
nomic and financial sectors. As globalisation process progressed in these
sectors, the traditional nation state actors were provided with shrinking
space, and little say, at the micro and macro-level performance of globali-
sation. International financial and trade institutions and big multinational
corporates have assumed commanding positions in the process, which has
undermined the position of national-level Ministers of Finance, Economy
and Trade and reduced them to little more than mere administrators of
the agenda set for them by the captains of economic and financial globali-
sation, seated elsewhere in the world, with their larger agenda. They have
come increasingly under remote controls. As a result, they are being
deprived of the necessary grip over their national economy and finance,
which is very important for the building up of a Welfare State System.
That is the negative impact. Economic and financial globalisation has trig-
gered some retrenchments in welfare state benefits.
Globalisation was launched in early 1990s by International financial
institutions, like the World Bank and the IMF, by imposing ‘Structural
Adjustment Programme’ on countries, which approached them for loans,
with the motive of removing all restrictions on foreign investment, to help
giant multinational companies (MNCs) to freely enter and invest in all
sectors of the national economy of host countries. They have arm-twisted
the developing countries to open their markets for free inflow of foreign
goods and capital. Record shows that while these MNCs had created only
very few jobs, they have destroyed countless jobs in host countries. The
Structural Adjustment Programmes have been dictated, by and large, by
the World Bank. However, this phase is likely to be transient, as this tricky
situation cannot survive for long in the present knowledge era, backed by
the global communication revolution. Loud demands for equality and jus-
tice would reverberate in the World, much sooner than one can imagine at
present. The adverse impact of economic and financial globalisation would
create challenging situations everywhere for its perpetrators. A pertinent
flash-point in this regard is likely to be the relationship between
 1 THE PERSPECTIVE 13

globalisation and the role of the state in it. The present globalisation–lib-
eralisation–privatisation programme aims a rollback of the role of the state
from public welfare. In the name of the preservation of competitiveness in
the globalised market, states are forced to cut down the welfare spending,
and to adopt an austere domestic fiscal policy. Through remote control
methods, they are forced to spend less on public welfare. However, if the
state’s role gets weakened or reduced, it would adversely affect the func-
tioning of the Welfare State System.

A Global Vision
A global welfare state vision is aimed to provide a layout to transform the
world into a peace-reigning ‘Common Home’ of a compassionate and
contented humanity, transcending all cultures and Continents. It is a
vision directed to create a new ‘One World’, based on cooperation, soli-
darity and Common Security, keeping in view the ‘Common Future’ of
mankind. It is born out of a deep conviction that, a world divided on nar-
row self-­centred frames of nationality and ethnicity, protected by highly
expensive war machines—a huge annual waste of world resources—is an
unsustainable situation for the future. The right way is to promote inter-­
Continental, subterranean, integration at peoples’ level, by peacefully
establishing an equity-based living standard and facilities across the world,
through the establishment of identical Welfare State Systems, by judi-
ciously using the bounty of Earth or the natural capital (asset), enriched
further by the intellectual prowess of humanity, manifested time and again
over the centuries, through the instruments of science and technology and
the like. The system should be attuned to achieve a judicious blend of high
economic growth and distributive justice. It envisages an onward march
towards the goal of ‘One World’, which Wendell Willkie articulated
in 1943.
Welfare State System is considered as an effective instrument to peace-
fully integrate the world because of its proven success to promote equity,
peace and contentment in whichever societies it has been put into practice,
and the impact it has made on the psyche of people to lead a life of peace,
equity and harmony, away from confrontation, wars and conflicts. The
inter-relationship among the states in the Nordic region presents a marvel-
lous example of it. The vision is that if the Welfare State System becomes
a domestic social set-up, and the Common Security system, as enunciated
by the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, becomes the foreign and
14 B. VIVEKANANDAN

security policy of nations, the bountiful surplus resources it would release

to raise people’s living conditions, around the world, are beyond descrip-
tion. It would enable peoples across the world to equitably share the
Earth’s bounty.

Spread of Welfare State System

Europe Pointed the Way

Europe is the cradle of modern Welfare State System. In the closing decades
of the nineteenth century, the term welfare state was used by the German
statesman Otto von Bismarck in order to appease the organised industrial
labour in Germany, and to arrest the growing influence of German social-
ists among them, and also arrest the migration of Germans to the United
States of America, where wages were high, but provision for welfare was
nil. He introduced social insurance schemes like old-age pensions, medical
care and accident insurance for workers, to protect industrial workers, as a
measure to keep them away from socialists. The circumstances which led
Bismarck to initiate those social policy measures in Germany have been
explained by Susanna Miller and Heinrich Potthoff in their classic book, A
History of German Social Democracy: From 1848 to the Present (1983). After
explaining the political context of doing it, they wrote:

Bismarck, as well as wielding the big stick, offered the hand of charity. … A
Health Insurance Law was passed by the Reichstag in 1883. This was fol-
lowed in 1884 by a measure covering accident insurance and in 1889 by one
covering disability and old-age insurance. It was the earliest legislation of its
kind … and it was based on the idea of government welfare, providing a
kind of ‘further development of the form underlying state poor relief’, as
Bismarck put it. The deeper motivation behind his social-policy initiatives
can be inferred from his words to the Reichstag: ‘If there were no Social
Democracy and if there were not a great many people who are afraid of it,
neither should we have the moderate advances that we have made in social
reform up to now’. Tactical political motives … governed his conduct here.
He introduced state benefits in the hope that they would pull the ground
from under the feet of Social Democracy, which he hated, win the workers
over to the existing conservative monarchical social order, and place them in
the bureaucratic, authoritarian leading–strings of a strengthened state.11
 1 THE PERSPECTIVE 15

But, in course of time, socialists themselves were attracted by its potential

and adopted it, and made it a dynamic concept to promote their own ide-
als of equality and distributive justice in society. They made it an instru-
ment to attack the charity approach and free the recipients of welfare
benefits from the repugnant ‘means-test’. And, social security and social
assistance have begun to be seen as a social right. Indeed, there is an over-
arching agreement everywhere in Europe today, from Finland to Italy and
from Portugal to Greece, that some sort of public welfare provisions are
necessary for people’s social protection.
It may be noted that in Europe welfare states flowered in different
countries in different times. As a result, the Welfare State Systems that had
come up in Europe during the twentieth century varied from one another
in their features, depending upon the national context in which they were
rooted. Esping-Andersen categorised them as Liberal (US), Conservative-­
Corporatist (Germany—between individualism and the Swedish statism)
and Social Democratic (Sweden). It may also be noted that long before
the British economist J.M. Keynes developed the idea of welfare state in
his seminal work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,
published in 1936,12 the term ‘Welfare State’ was used by Gustav Möller,
the architect of the Swedish Welfare State, in the 1928 Election Manifesto
of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. The Swedish economist Wigforss
was also instrumental in elaborating the concept. Indeed, during the inter-­
war period itself the Swedish Social Democrats had adopted the creation
of a Welfare State in Sweden as their political goal. From then onwards,
the Welfare State concept got intertwined with the ideas of equality, free-
dom, democracy, distributive justice, solidarity and full employment. In
Britain, although Fabians were trying to promote the Welfare State con-
cept as part of their fight against poverty in Britain, William Beveridge’s
Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services, published in 1942, was a
landmark in the development of the British Welfare State.13 The cardinal
message in that Report was that it was imperative to establish a minimum
standard of living for all.
The most outstanding model of a modern Welfare State System is
Sweden, followed by the systems established in other Scandinavian coun-
tries like Denmark, Norway and Finland. Together, they made it a regional
feature and ethos. Ranking high in the Human Development Index year
after year, their system has received worldwide attention and stands out as
inspiring models for social reconstruction for other countries to emulate.
They have shown that the Welfare State System springs peaceful behaviour
16 B. VIVEKANANDAN

among people and countries. As a result, social policy of countries, or of a

group of countries, is being discussed in recent decades. European Union,
for example, is talking about a European Social Policy, to live up to the
aspirations of the people of the Union. Though the progress made in this
direction remains slow and minimal, it is a good beginning. In due course,
it can lead to a debate on a global social policy, ensuring a presentable
standard of living for everyone in all Continents. It would potentially ban-
ish wars and conflicts in the World, and free people everywhere from the
burden of huge military expenditure in the name of defence. Olof Palme’s
Common Security doctrine provides the nitty-gritty of how to achieve it.

In Scandinavia
In Scandinavia, the Welfare State System has been nurtured as a flagship of
Social Democracy in those countries. Application of the principles of
Social Democracy truthfully led to the blooming of the Welfare State
System in all these countries and Finland. As a result, welfare state became
almost a synonym for Social Democracy. In due course, the Welfare State
System became the ethos of these countries, cutting across the political
divides in them, by building up a consensus around it. It made a welcome
impact on mutual relationship of all Nordic countries.
In Sweden, the construction of Welfare State System was begun in
1930s in a systematic manner. The rationale the Swedish SDP gave at that
time was that in a democracy those who suffer from fear and want would
not feel that they are free citizens. Therefore, to free them from fear and
want, it was imperative to provide everybody with adequate social security,
and the SDP adopted a social policy conducive for it. The construction of
the Welfare State System in Sweden was facilitated by the fact that the
Swedish Social Democratic Party was in power continuously for 44 years
from 1932. As a result, they could build a cradle-to-the-grave Welfare
State System in Sweden. Universalism and non-discrimination were its car-
dinal features. Beyond alleviation of poverty, the programme was directed
towards distributive justice and solidarity.14 Other Scandinavian countries
followed Sweden.
All Scandinavian countries have established a cradle-to-the-grave
Welfare State System in all of them (see details in Chap. 2). When a person
is provided with such an all-round protection under the Welfare State
System, it works in him/her as an incentive to goodness and a springboard
of cooperation and solidarity.15 It progressively dissipates his selfishness
and makes him socially responsible. The system does not provide any
 1 THE PERSPECTIVE 17

incentive for illegitimate desire for acquisition as he/she is aware that the
future interests of his/her children and grandchildren are also safe under
the system. It promotes humane and healthy interpersonal relationship.
Cooperation and compassion replace competition and self-­aggrandisement.
Mutual respect between equals becomes the idiom of their general inter-
actions. This is evident in all Scandinavian countries.

In France
In many other countries of Europe, the impetus to build the Welfare State
System came from common hardships and sufferings during the Second
World War. And, many of them, like France for example, were influenced
by the Beveridgean ideas. The French followed an egalitarian welfare state
model based on equality, freedom and national solidarity, in consonance
with the watchwords of the French Revolution. They established a well-­
developed social security system, the key components of which are a well-­
developed healthcare, unemployment benefits and pension schemes.
Under the system, anyone born or residing in France is entitled to social
security benefits. A notable aspect of the French system is its refusal to
accept the mercantile logic on social welfare matters. The rationale is that
market rules cannot meet the requirements of solidarity and social cohe-
sion. The Welfare State System in France is founded on a basic General
Insurance Scheme, complemented by additional schemes managed by pri-
vate insurance. Without these additional schemes, benefits from the
General Insurance Scheme remained inadequate. The Rocard Reforms of
1992, in France, ensured that citizens who are unable to work due to their
old age, mental or physical condition or economic situation have the right
to obtain, from society, decent means to live. Similarly, a law, enacted in
July 1999 in France, gave everybody in the country entitlement to health-
care, without any contribution pre-requisite.16

In Germany
In Germany too, the present Welfare State System is a post-war construc-
tion. A notable aspect of it is that when it was introduced, it was not wed-
ded to the principle of equality. This was largely due to the fact that social
policy institutions in West Germany were established during the Centre-­
Right Governments of Christian Democrats. The Basic Law of 1949 made
‘Social State’ (Welfare State) a linchpin of the Federal Republic of Germany
(FRG). A major old-age pension reform was introduced in 1957. But, a
significant expansion of social policy in FRG took place after the German
18 B. VIVEKANANDAN

Social Democratic Party (SPD) joined the government in 1966. It intro-

duced a wide range of benefits and services. Still, in a broad sense, Germany
has been classified as a centrist welfare state—a blend of collective and
individual values, through compulsory membership and earning-related
benefits. The distinct nature of German welfare state model is manifest in
the use of the term ‘Social State’, instead of ‘Welfare State’ in the Basic
Law. While the ‘Social State’ implied a combination of freedom of indi-
vidual plus market, ‘Welfare State’ implied state provision and control.
Indeed, in Germany there is a welfare mix of public and private services.
This mix is manifest in the provision of welfare services, health services and
social housing. So, basically, the German Welfare State System is attuned
mainly to security rather than to equality.

In Britain
The British welfare state was founded on the ideas of J.M. Keynes and
William Beveridge, and was characterised by universalism. Keynes favoured
the creation of welfare states, with large public investment to generate
more jobs, and a large public sector. Beveridge complemented it by chart-
ing a Welfare State System, covering people’s needs from the
cradle-to-the-grave.
In his famous Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services, published
in 1942, Beveridge underlined the imperative need to establish a mini-
mum standard of living, below which no one should be allowed to fall.
Therefore, conceptually, a citizen in the British Welfare State is an
employed person, insured against all eventualities in life like illness, dis-
ability, unemployment and so on. All along, there was a political consensus
in Britain regarding the Welfare State System. But, this consensus was
broken in 1980s, after Margaret Thatcher became the British prime min-
ister. During that period, the neo-liberal perspective began to make
inroads into the British welfare state reform debate. The objective was to
whittle down the content of statism in the British Welfare State System. As
a result, many welfare state benefits were trimmed down. Tony Blair’s
‘third way’ has acquiesced into most of the changes already brought in by
the Conservative administrations during their preceding 18 years’ rule.
Blair’s New Labour was tended to refashion the British welfare state as a
“wage earners’ welfare state”. It tried to link welfare to work, and tried to
impel the unemployed people to return to work by increasing the eco-
nomic insecurity of employees at all levels. In Hall’s Words: “William
Beveridge understood that ‘universalism’, despite its costs, was essential to
 1 THE PERSPECTIVE 19

binding the richer sections of society into collective forms of welfare. …

The whole system would be in danger as soon as the rich could willingly
exclude themselves from collective provisions by buying themselves out.”17
So conceptually, a citizen in the British welfare state is an employed
person, insured against all eventualities in life—illness, disability, unem-
ployment and so on. National Health Service (NHS) was part of it. This
legacy of the formative period of the British welfare state still guides
the system.

 he US New Deal: Across the Atlantic

T
Across the Atlantic, the welfare state programme got into the government
agenda in the 1930s. In the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
New Deal Reforms made a good beginning. Roosevelt’s declaration of
‘Four Freedoms’, which included freedom from want, provisions in the
Atlantic Charter of 1941 for social security and fair labour standards,
embedded in his New Deal Reforms, provided the philosophical founda-
tion of the Welfare State System in the United States. Indeed, Roosevelt’s
New Deal Reforms constituted the bed-rock of the US Welfare State
System. Whatever welfare state benefits American citizens enjoy today,
including work and social security, retirement benefits and so on, spring
from Roosevelt’s New Deal Reforms of 1930s. Social Security Act of 1935
has provided for social insurance for the aged, unemployed and the dis-
abled. But, after the New Deal Reforms, further growth of the Welfare
State System in US got more or less stunted, due to the neglect it suffered,
in the hands of subsequent US administrations. Moreover, further reforms
introduced in this context lacked universality, and were done without
curbing the prevalent inequality and private market interests. The strategy
generally followed was ‘less government’ involvement in the public wel-
fare sector, and, wherever possible, claw back the welfare benefits. The
stress was more on individual responsibility, rather than on state responsi-
bility. As a result, matters like healthcare and education have not yet been
fully brought under the ambience of the US Welfare State System.18 In
consequence, the welfare spending in the United States remains dismally
low, around 4–5 per cent of the GDP, compared to 33 per cent spent in
Sweden on this account.

Canada
In a broad sense Canada’s Welfare State System has been patterned after
the British and the Scandinavian systems. It was influenced by the
20 B. VIVEKANANDAN

formulations of the British economist J.M. Keynes, the Beveridge

Committee Report of 1942, and by the path-breaking construction of a
full-fledged institutionalised Welfare State System, in 1930s, in Sweden,
which the Canadian economist, Leonard C Marsh, the author of the
famous Marsh Report, visited in 1937. By the time, Marsh visited Sweden,
the country had already laid the foundation of building an advanced
Welfare State System in that country. The pathway of constructing a Welfare
State System in Canada was laid on the basis of recommendations of three
expert committee Reports—the Marsh Committee Report (1943),
Heagerty Committee Report (1943) and the Rowell-Sirois Commission
Report (1940). While Marsh Report dealt with issues of social insurance
and social minimum standards in Canada,19 the Heagerty Report recom-
mended national health insurance and unemployment insurance.20 The
Rowell-Sirois Commission made recommendations on unemployment
benefits, old-age pensions and public health, medical and hospital services,
in addition to Dominion-Province financial relations, including the pro-
portion of the sharing of the expenditure on welfare provisions.21
Between 1963 and 1968, Canada had undertaken major welfare state
reforms. This was done jointly by the Liberal Party and the New Democratic
Party of social democrats of Canada. The period witnessed the introduction
of social security, health insurance and public housing. Provisions have been
made for unemployment insurance, child allowances, old-age pensions, dis-
ability pensions, housing assistance and the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP)
which provided a framework for financing need-­based social services for
low-income and middle-income families. As a result, Canada has acquired
the features of an advanced Welfare State System.
Though ideologically Canada’s Welfare State System has been closer to
the British system, in practice it has become closer to the US system. This
proximity was facilitated by the Canada–US Free Trade Agreement of
1989. A new ‘claw back’ system became fully operational in 1999, which
brought an end to the universal elderly and child benefits, though public
opinion favours the retention of the universalist approach. Individual
responsibility for welfare is also being stressed, along with state’s responsi-
bility. Though there was no open attack on the Welfare State System in
Canada, the attack was carried out in stealth, through cost-cutting mea-
sures. Though some mutilation of the system has taken place, the core
elements of it still remain intact. Healthcare and education still remain
universal and sate funded. Therefore, despite certain whittling down,
 1 THE PERSPECTIVE 21

Canada has one of the most advanced Welfare State Systems in the world
today, more or less on a par with systems prevalent in Australia and New
Zealand (more details in Chap. 4).

In Asia
In Asia, two countries, India and the People’s Republics of China, deserve
special attention in this context.

India
India, the largest democracy in the world, is a nascent welfare state, which
is getting attuned to provide welfare state benefits, based on principles of
equality and universality, to all its people in the coming decades.
Historically, while many countries of Europe were engaged in planning
and building of their Welfare State Systems since late 1920s, India was in
the midst of a struggle for its independence. By the time India got inde-
pendence in 1947, Welfare State Systems had already taken shape in some
countries of Europe, like Britain and Scandinavian countries, for example,
which received the attention of many British-educated Indian political
elite. As a result, when India’s new Constitution was debated in the
Constituent Assembly between 1948 and 1950, the goal of building a
Welfare State System in the country, in future, became a focal point. In
consequence, many provisions have been incorporated in the Indian
Constitution to transform India into a universalist welfare state in future.22
This objective has been made explicit in the ‘Preamble’ of the Indian
Constitution, and the provisions for it have been made in Chaps. 3 and 4
of the Constitution pertaining to ‘Fundamental Rights’ and ‘Directive
Principles of State Policy’.23

Provisions in the Constitution

The ‘Preamble’ of the Indian Constitution envisaged social political and
economic justice for all people, and wanted the state to work for the well-­
being of all people. It also envisaged that India should become a society
based on equality and justice.24 In the pursuit of that objective, many pro-
visions have been made in Chapters on Fundamental Rights and Directive
principles of State Policy.25 More distinctly, the Directive Principles of
State Policy are pointing the way for the development of India into a wel-
fare state. Article 38 of the Indian Constitution says that “the state shall
22 B. VIVEKANANDAN

strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting …

a social order in which justice, social, economic and political shall inform
all the institutions of national life”.26 Similarly, Article 39 speaks about the
rights of all people for adequate means of livelihood, equal pay for equal
work, healthy work environment, protection of children against exploita-
tion and material abandonment. Under this article, it is incumbent on the
State to ensure that “the ownership and control of the material resources
of the community are so distributed as best to subserve the common
good”.27 Article 41 makes the state responsible, to make effective provi-
sions “for security, the right to work, to education, and to public assistance
in case of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, and in other
cases of underserved want”.28 Articles 42 and 43 have made the state
responsible for provision of maternity relief, and for securing all workers
jobs, “a living wage, conditions of work ensuring a decent standard of life
and full enjoyment of leisure and social and cultural opportunities”.29
Article 45 provides for compulsory education for all children up to 14
years, besides other provisions which stipulate that children should be pro-
vided with opportunities and facilities to grow and develop in a healthy
manner, and in conditions of freedom and dignity.30 These constitutional
provisions are adequate to build up a Welfare State System in India,
approximate to the Scandinavian model.

The Follow-Up
As a follow-up of these provisions in the Constitution, the foundation of
a Welfare State System in India was laid during the first three Five Year
Plans, between 1951 and 1965, under the prime ministership of Jawaharlal
Nehru. There has been a limited expansion of free public education, and
free public healthcare. Similarly, some progress has been made in institut-
ing various pension schemes. The government adopted labour-intensive
industrial policy and approach. Measures have been taken to make public
sector a dominant sector in the country’s economy and development.
Thus, some progress in the implementation of the welfare state provisions
in the Indian Constitution has been made during the prime ministerships
of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Morarji Desai, though the speed
and the spread of it was short of expectations. And, further growth of it
was stunted, under succeeding administrations, largely due to neglect.
But, the programme suffered a serious setback since 1990s, after a
World Bank nominee, Dr Manmohan Singh, positioned himself as India’s
 1 THE PERSPECTIVE 23

finance minister, and later as prime minister for ten years—a total of 15
years, who made every effort from inside, to hollow out the state from the
arena of public welfare. During those 15 years, he waylaid the Indian
economy, finance and social policy, and put them on the track of liberalisa-
tion, privatisation and marketisation, under the misleading label of
‘restructuring’. And, from a vantage position, he pursued an anti-welfare
state agenda by hollowing out the state from the sector of public welfare,
and brought in private market solutions. His successor, Narendra Modi,
also pursues the same anti-welfare state policy, by pauperising the Indian
state. But, this setback is temporary. India is expected to be back on the
welfare state track soon, as there is a vast body of public opinion in India
in favour of a universal, institutional, Welfare State System in the country.

 eople’s Republic of China

P
The People’s Republic of China presents the picture of a strange dual
Welfare State System, which is largely the preserve of the employed city
dwellers of the country. As a policy, the rural poor in China has been kept
more or less outside the purview of welfare state benefits. The social policy
followed in the Communist China is: “each according to his work”, and
not “each according to his need”. To justify this strange dichotomy, the
Chinese Communists have denigrated that welfare dependency is poten-
tially parasitic.31

Iron Rice Bowl System

After the Chinese Revolution, Mao Tse-tung established the iron rice bowl
Welfare State System in China. The iron rice bowl meant the stability and
security of a government employee, largely composed of the urban
population.
In 1950, the People’s Republic of China had introduced a nation-wide
Labour Insurance Scheme, at the factory level, which covered only work-
ers and employees in industry and government enterprises, and coopera-
tive institutions and private factories, with more than 100 workers and
staff. The Labour Insurance Scheme provided benefits to the sick, the
disabled, pensioners and expecting mothers. In 1952, the coverage of
labour insurance was extended to workers in mines and transport enter-
prises, communication services and state-run construction enterprises.
The scheme has been administered by the All China Federation of Labour
Union and their branches. Funds for it came from employers, who had to
24 B. VIVEKANANDAN

pay 3 per cent of the wages to the Labour Insurance Fund. This fund has
been operated jointly by the companies and the Labour Unions.
In 1978, the government introduced major reforms in the healthcare
system. It allowed the medical professionals to do private practices. Yet, as
of today, the Chinese healthcare system in the rural areas remains extremely
weak, as 80 per cent of hospitals and doctors in the country are located in
the city only. In 1978, the government upgraded the pension system from
the company level to the provincial government level. In 1985, the gov-
ernment recognised the need for setting up new social insurance pro-
grammes for workers and employees of government institutions, as well as
state-owned, collective-owned and other enterprises. But, this new social
security system has also been centred on the protection of the strong,
while neglecting the needs of the weak and the rural poor. In 1994, the
government has expanded the healthcare services, and the sharing of
financial burden of social security provisions.

The Dualism in China

A spectacular deficiency of the Chinese Welfare State System is the dualism
in the entitlement of welfare rights between the people living in the urban
areas and the rural areas. Though about 80 per cent of the people in China
live in countryside, the Welfare State System of the country is designed to
cater the need of workers and employees in the urban areas. Therefore the
Welfare State System in the People’s Republic of China exists only in the
city ‘islands’, and not in the vast rural China. This dualism between the
urban and rural China in terms of social development underlines the
absence of universalism and equity in the application of the Chinese wel-
fare state.32 Therefore, since the Chinese Welfare State System covers only
permanent workers in the cities, the system is not based on the principles
of equality and equity. It is a strange dual system—an urban welfare state
and a rural non-welfare state. The maintenance of this hiatus systemati-
cally in the same country, under the same system, is a paradox. For ending
this paradox, it is imperative to end this hiatus in the welfare state provi-
sion in the People’s Republic of China. Therefore, until the system covers
the rural population also, China can hardly be seen even as a minimalist
welfare state. It is still possible for China to establish an all-embracing
social insurance scheme, financed by the national budget, that would ben-
efit people living in rural China too.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of L'Écrivain
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: L'Écrivain

Author: Pierre Mille

Release date: November 29, 2023 [eBook #72256]

Language: French

Original publication: Paris: Hachette, 1925

Credits: Laurent Vogel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from
images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK L'ÉCRIVAIN

***
LES CARACTÈRES DE CE TEMPS

L’ÉCRIVAIN
PAR
PIERRE MILLE

A PARIS
Chez HACHETTE

HUITIÈME MILLE
 LES CARACTÈRES DE CE TEMPS

LE POLITIQUE, Par Louis Barthou, de l’Académie

Française. — LE PAYSAN, Par Henry Bordeaux, de
l’Académie Française. — LE DIPLOMATE, Par J.
Cambon, de l’Académie Française. — LE BOURGEOIS,
Par Abel Hermant. — LE PRÊTRE, Par Monseigneur
Julien, Évêque d’Arras. — LE FINANCIER, Par R.-G.
Lévy, Membre de l’Institut. — L’HOMME D’AFFAIRES,
Par Louis Loucheur. — L’ÉCRIVAIN, Par Pierre Mille.
— LE SAVANT, Par le Prof. Ch. Richet, Membre de
l’Institut. — L’AVOCAT, Par Henri-Robert, de
l’Académie Française, Ancien Bâtonnier. — L’OUVRIER,
Par Albert Thomas, Etc.

Tous droits de traduction, de reproduction et d’adaptation réservés

pour tous pays.
Copyright by Librairie Hachette, 1925.

Il a été tiré de cet ouvrage soixante exemplaires sur papier de

Hollande, numérotés de 1 à 60.
 L’ÉCRIVAIN

CHAPITRE PREMIER

CONSULTATION

La mère de Pamphile est chez moi. Encore qu’elle ait pris son air
le plus sérieux, je lui dis qu’elle est charmante.
« Vous pouvez, dit-elle, vous dispenser de ces compliments,
adressés à une femme qui a un fils de vingt ans.
— Cela ne fait que quarante…
— Trente-huit ! corrige-t-elle précipitamment… Mais il s’agit bien
de ça ! C’est de mon fils, non pas de moi, que je viens vous parler.
— Pamphile a fait des bêtises ? Il veut en faire ?
— Non. Du moins, je ne crois pas : il prétend écrire.
— Écrire ? A qui ? A une dame ? Au Président de la République ?
— Ne feignez pas l’incompréhension. Il veut écrire. Devenir
écrivain, homme de lettres, enfin.
— Et vous, qu’est-ce que vous en pensez ? Et son père ?
— Cela ne nous déplaît pas… Mais à vous ?
 — A moi non plus…
— C’est que vous avez toujours l’air de rire… On a bien tort de
vous demander conseil !
— Je ne ris pas, je souris. Je souris de satisfaction. J’admire
comme la bourgeoisie se réconcilie successivement avec toutes les
forces qui sortent d’elle, mais dont pourtant, durant bien longtemps,
elle s’est méfiée, qu’elle considérait comme en révolte ou en
dissidence. Ah ! tout est bien changé, depuis seulement la fin du
second Empire ! Au temps du second Empire jamais une famille
bourgeoise, ayant la prétention de se respecter, n’aurait donné à sa
fille un officier. On estimait que tous les officiers étaient « des piliers
de café ». Ils devaient rester célibataires, ou se marier dans des
familles militaires. La guerre de 1870 a changé cela. Tout le monde
étant obligé de servir, on a pris l’habitude de l’uniforme, il n’a plus
épouvanté.
« En second lieu la bourgeoisie s’est annexé les peintres. On
s’est aperçu que Cabrion pouvait se faire de confortables revenus.
Le prix de ses tableaux montait, il devenait un beau parti ; il a été
reçu dans les salons. Mais les poètes et les romanciers ont attendu
plus longtemps à la porte. Le poète, surtout, paraissait un animal
particulièrement inquiétant, une malédiction pour ses géniteurs.
Baudelaire écrivit là-dessus des vers magnifiques.
— En vérité ?
— En vérité. Je vous les lirai un autre jour…
« Trente ans au moins encore après que les peintres étaient
entrés, ou pouvaient entrer, pour peu que cela leur convînt, dans le
bercail bourgeois, les poètes, les romanciers, les journalistes ne
fréquentaient guère que le café, comme jadis les militaires. C’est au
café qu’a vécu la littérature, que s’est faite la littérature, jusqu’à la fin
du symbolisme. A cette heure elle l’a déserté. Elle a conquis sa
place dans le monde, elle en profite largement.
— Vous vous en plaignez ?
— Moi ? Non. J’estime même que ce n’est point uniquement par
considération, par respect des sommes qu’il est permis d’attendre de
leur profession — le métier de poète me semble condamné, sauf
exception, à demeurer peu lucratif — que le monde accueille les
écrivains. C’est d’abord pour s’en orner, pour s’excuser, par une
parure intellectuelle, d’autres ostracismes, et de la vénération qu’il
continue d’avoir pour l’argent. C’est aussi parce que la société
contemporaine, se sentant ou se croyant plus menacée
qu’auparavant dans ses assises organiques, éprouve le besoin de
s’appuyer sur tout ce qui peut, le cas échéant, lui prêter son
concours, tout ce qui a, en somme, la même origine qu’elle. Or, en
France, il ne saurait y avoir d’écrivains, et depuis longtemps en fait il
n’y en a presque pas, qui ne soient issus des classes supérieures ou
moyennes, ou bien qui n’aient, ce qui revient au même, bénéficié de
la formation intellectuelle réservée à ces classes : je veux dire celle
de l’Enseignement secondaire.
— Expliquez-vous plus clairement. Il y a dans ce que vous dites
tant de mots abstraits !…
— J’y vais tâcher. Je ne vous demande pas si Pamphile a été
reçu à son bachot. Ceci n’a aucune importance. Mais il a passé par
le lycée, n’est-ce pas ?
— Il sort de chez les Pères…
— C’est la même chose. On lui a appris mal le latin, pas du tout
le grec, et, quoi qu’on en dise, à peu près le français et
l’orthographe. Le français un peu mieux que l’orthographe et la
ponctuation pour lesquelles les jeunes générations, je ne sais
pourquoi, affectent un singulier mépris : mais on les exige de moins
en moins dans la carrière littéraire. Par surcroît, sans même qu’il
s’en soit douté, il s’est pénétré d’un ensemble de conceptions,
d’idées, de principes sur quoi repose notre art depuis quatre siècles,
et qui lui donne ses lois.
« Si Pamphile était le plus remarquable, même le plus génial des
primaires, je vous dirais : « S’il n’a le diable au corps, qu’il ne se
risque pas à devenir un écrivain. Notre langue est un outil
merveilleux, mais de formation classique, j’oserai presque dire
artificielle. Elle est une langue de société, une langue de gens du
monde, une langue de collège où les murs sont encore tout
imprégnés de latin, même quand on n’y enseigne plus le latin. Il n’en
est pas ainsi en Russie, en Allemagne et dans les pays anglo-
saxons. La littérature y est plus populaire et davantage le patrimoine
de tout le monde. Gorki a été débardeur et cuisinier. Vingt
romanciers américains ont fait leur éducation à l’école primaire, dans
la rue et à l’atelier. Chez nous un Murger ou un Pierre Hamp
resteront des exceptions… » Mais Pamphile a usé ses culottes sur
les bancs d’un lycée : par une sorte de grâce d’état — je vous
assure que je parle sérieusement — cela suffit. S’il a quelque chose
dans le ventre il pourra le sortir sans trop de peine.
— Je vous remercie.
— Il n’y a pas de quoi… Et, dites-moi, ce jeune homme a-t-il des
dispositions ?
— C’est-à-dire qu’il n’est bon à rien. J’entends à rien autre. Il
ferait ça avec un peu plus de goût, comprenez-vous ? Ou plutôt
moins de dégoût.
— On ne saurait mieux définir la vocation. Nos pères ont proféré
des choses excessives sur la vocation, et le terme même, je le
reconnais, y engage. Il suggère un appel irrésistible et secret, un
démon furieux, un dieu sublime, ailé, qui vous emporte… que sais-je
encore ! La vérité est que la vocation est un autre nom pour le
principe du moindre effort qui régit de l’univers entier jusqu’aux
plantes, jusqu’aux minéraux. La vocation consiste à faire ce qui vous
donne le moins de mal, qui vous est le moins désagréable. Toutefois
l’on peut admettre qu’elle se confond, dans certains cas, avec
l’instinct du jeu, c’est-à-dire la recherche d’un plaisir qu’on se donne
gratuitement. Un philosophe distingué, au début du siècle dernier,
était conducteur d’omnibus pour gagner sa vie, et faisait de la
philosophie pour se reposer. Mais ce sont là des exceptions. Le
principe du moindre effort, la recherche de ce qui vous est le plus
facile, suffit. Pamphile préfère écrire à tricoter des bas, ou à
l’administration des contributions indirectes : il n’y a pas autre chose
à lui demander.
 — Mais croyez-vous qu’il réussira ?
— Je ne dis pas cela. Cette profession d’écrivain est l’une de
celles — il y en a d’autres, quand ce ne serait que le commerce et
l’industrie — où nul avancement ne se peut prévoir à l’ancienneté,
où il n’y a pas de retraite. Tant pis pour lui s’il échoue. Il doit le
prévoir et s’y résigner.
« Et il peut rester en route parce qu’il sera trop personnel, ou bien
au contraire trop banal. S’il est trop personnel, qu’il se contente de
l’estime d’un petit nombre. Il la trouvera toujours. Cela ne fera pas
bouillir sa marmite, mais ceci est une autre affaire. S’il est seulement
« ordinaire », son sort ne sera pas trop misérable dans la société
contemporaine. Le journalisme, et même la littérature courante,
exigent un personnel de plus en plus considérable. Il a des chances
de se faire une petite carrière, un petit nom.
— Mais que doit-il écrire, pour commencer, comment publier ?
— Ah ! ça, par exemple, je n’en sais rien. C’est un des mystères
les plus insondables de la profession et le secret est pratiquement
incommunicable… Du reste, envoyez-moi le candidat… »
 CHAPITRE II

LES DÉBUTS DE PAMPHILE

Sur la recommandation de sa mère, Pamphile est venu me voir.

Sa mise était d’une élégance raffinée, ce qui ne m’a point déplu :
j’estime qu’un jeune homme doit être de son époque. Il y a trente
ans, je me fusse méfié d’un candidat à la carrière des lettres habillé
comme un homme du monde : la mode, dans la corporation, exigeait
soit une certaine négligence, soit ce qu’on appelait de l’originalité :
un gilet rouge, ou bien un jabot et des manchettes de dentelles.
C’est que les gens de lettres vivaient au café, et loin des femmes.
Aujourd’hui, vers cinq heures, ils sont dans un salon, où l’on en voit,
et de charmantes. Le soir, ils se retrouvent dans un bar qui est en
même temps un dancing, et où il en est d’autres — également
charmantes, et, par l’apparence du moins, presque les mêmes.
Il est à noter du reste que, aux âges reculés où le petit univers
littéraire vivait presque totalement à l’écart du grand univers féminin,
il faisait profession de célébrer l’amour et d’adorer la femme. A cette
heure que la communication est rétablie, la jeune littérature affecte
volontiers de dédaigner l’amour et de remettre la femme à sa place.
Ceci doit être encore affaire de mode.
« … Ainsi, dis-je à Pamphile, vous voulez devenir mon confrère.
Vous m’en voyez très honoré… Quel genre comptez-vous
aborder ? »
 Pamphile me regarda gentiment. La jeunesse d’à présent a
perdu sa timidité devant les ancêtres. Cela tient à ce que ceux qui
sont revenus de la guerre ont vu en face des choses plus
intimidantes ; ils ont conscience aussi de parler au nom de ceux qui
sont morts. Enfin je soupçonne que la fréquentation et la
conversation habituelle des femmes, plus commune de nos jours
qu’autrefois, y est également pour quelque chose. Je ne m’étonnai
donc point de l’assurance de Pamphile, bien qu’il demeurât muet ; il
ne me répondait rien.
« La prose, les vers ? » fis-je pour l’encourager un peu,
généralisant de façon si banale que cela me faisait rougir.
Son regard, qu’il conserve ingénu, malgré la possession qu’il a
de lui, se chargea de quelque commisération :
« Vous savez bien (j’entendis qu’il signifiait : Vous devriez
savoir…) qu’il n’y a plus de différence…
— Comment ?…
— Il ne s’agit plus de vers libre. C’est fini du vers libre… Mais les
tendances actuelles intègrent la poésie, les images qui sont le
propre de la poésie, dans la prose. Et la prose à son tour… »
Si l’on s’embarque dans la théorie, surtout avec les jeunes gens,
on en a pour longtemps ; j’abrégeai :
« Pamphile, vous m’avez sûrement apporté quelque chose…
Montrez !… »
Il ne se fit pas prier. Il était, j’imagine, venu surtout pour ça. Je lus
d’un trait, parce qu’il n’y avait pas de ponctuation :
Contraction des pupilles Voronof — cocktail il y a trop longtemps
que nous sommes là intense vie par en bas visages morts tournoi
d’âmes dans le tournoiement éternité momentanée du désir.
« Ah ! Ah ! fis-je.
— N’est-ce pas ? acquiesça-t-il.
— Pamphile, je vais être franc. J’ai besoin que vous m’éclairiez
un peu ce texte.
 — Il est pourtant d’une limpidité suffisante… « Contraction des
pupilles », ça veut dire que j’entre, venant de la rue obscure, dans un
bar férocement illuminé. Je prends un cocktail très violent… Voronof,
vous comprenez… « Il y a trop longtemps que nous sommes là »,
c’est ce que je dis au bout de cinq minutes. Au bout de cinq minutes
on en a toujours assez, on n’est pas encore adapté. « Intense vie
par en bas, visages morts », ce sont les pieds des danseurs, qui
s’agitent, et leurs figures inertes. « Tournois d’âmes dans ce
tournoiement » : qu’est-ce qui se passe, de danseur à danseuse,
pendant qu’ils tournent ? Et alors : « Éternité momentanée du désir »
se comprend tout seul. C’est le phare au bout de la strophe… Il n’y a
pas de ponctuation parce que tout ça se plaque au même instant sur
l’appareil cérébral.
— Excellent ! » déclarai-je.
Pamphile daigna paraître assez satisfait de mon approbation.
« Maintenant, dites-moi, poursuivis-je, si vous avez l’intention
d’écrire comme ça toute votre vie ? »
Pamphile sourit doucement :
« Mais non, monsieur ! J’écris comme ça pour bien prouver que
je ne suis pas plus bête que les autres de ma génération, que je suis
au courant du procédé littéraire contemporain, et que je sais le
manier. Si j’agissais différemment on croirait que je ne suis pas à la
page… Et puis, voyons : supposez que, de but en blanc, j’écrive un
roman comme Bourget, quel éditeur le publiera ? Et s’il s’en trouve
un par hasard, qui le lira ? Je dois d’abord, dans de petites revues et
par de petites plaquettes, conquérir l’estime de mes pairs, ceux qui
ont le même âge que moi, et affirmer mon nom, mon existence…
Plus tard, je modifierai progressivement ma manière, de façon à
atteindre un autre public, mais je crois que j’en garderai l’essentiel.
— Vraiment ? Pourquoi ?
— Il y a si longtemps que les hommes savent lire qu’ils lisent de
plus en plus vite. Ils ne sautent pas seulement les mots, mais les
paragraphes, les pages. Ils sont dressés à comprendre bien plus
rapidement qu’il y a un siècle. On dit que c’est à cause de la T. S. F.,
de l’auto, de la précipitation de la vie contemporaine. Ça, c’est peut-
être une blague… Toutefois le fait est là… Alors il faut arriver à
l’analyse infinitésimale d’impressions simultanées, comme Marcel
Proust, ou au contraire à la condensation maxima de phénomènes
visuels et cérébraux qui n’ont aucun rapport entre eux, du moins
apparent, dans le temps et dans l’espace, et pourtant s’évoquent, se
compénètrent les uns les autres.
— Pamphile, lui dis-je, votre mère a eu bien tort de me prier de
vous donner des conseils : vous êtes fort ! Vous êtes beaucoup plus
fort que moi ! Pourquoi me demandez-vous des leçons ?
— Je ne vous en demande pas sur ce que je sais, mais ce que
j’ignore…
— Et modeste, avec ça : c’est de l’intelligence !… Laissez-moi
donc alors vous faire une observation. Vous m’avez dit : « Si
j’écrivais un roman comme M. Paul Bourget, quel éditeur le
prendrait ? » Mais n’importe lequel, et tout de suite ! Seulement il ne
vaudrait probablement pas ceux de M. Bourget… Un bon roman
implique une grosse somme d’expériences sociales ou individuelles,
soit directes, soit indirectes. Un roman, c’est toujours le romancier
réagissant contre lui-même ou contre la société. C’est pourquoi
vouloir se mêler d’aborder ce genre difficile avant d’avoir vécu,
revient à prétendre diriger un paquebot avant d’avoir vu la mer. Et
l’on ignore même l’art d’associer et d’exprimer ses propres
sentiments : il y faut du métier, comme en toutes choses.
« Donc, que ces façons de petits poèmes que vous m’apportez,
et qui ne sont, selon vous-même, ni prose, ni vers — mais ça m’est
égal ! — soient pour vous comme un exercice de piano, des
arpèges ! On n’en saurait trop faire. Le poète a le droit d’être
purement subjectif, il peut tout tirer de lui-même, il peut ne rien
connaître de la vie réelle, quotidienne, des hommes et des femmes
de son propre pays et de l’univers. Qu’il les voie à travers lui, c’est
assez. J’oserai même dire que c’est désirable.
« Les petits poèmes que vous venez de me montrer, Pamphile,
ne sont pas meilleurs, je me risque à vous le confier, que ceux que
je pourrais composer, moi qui ne suis pas poète. Mais ils doivent
servir à vous découvrir à vous-même, ce qui est indispensable.
« Et plus tard, plus tard, vous verrez à quoi peut s’appliquer le
métier que vous aurez acquis… Au fait, avez-vous déjà, là-dessus,
une idée ?
— Comment l’entendez-vous ?
— Vous voulez « écrire ». C’est une expression bien vague. Un
historien est un écrivain, lui aussi. Toutefois, mettons l’histoire de
côté, comme aussi la sociologie et la philosophie, et tout ce qui
touche, de près ou de loin, à des sciences plus ou moins exactes.
Mais un journaliste, Pamphile, est aussi un écrivain. Voulez-vous
être un journaliste ?
— Eh ! monsieur, répliqua Pamphile, vous venez de le dire vous-
même : c’est à la vie de me l’apprendre. Dans dix ans, je le saurai. Il
y aura les modalités propres de mon talent, si j’en ai, il y aura mon
plus ou moins de volonté, il y aura les circonstances. Laissez-moi le
temps…
— Pamphile, j’ignore si vous aurez du talent, mais vous êtes un
garçon raisonnable. »
 CHAPITRE III

L’AMATEUR

Depuis que Pamphile s’est résolu d’embrasser la carrière des

lettres, je distingue dans son apparence extérieure, et ses
comportements, des changements appréciables. Il est mis avec
moins de recherche, bien que toujours correctement. Sans les éviter
tout à fait, il néglige la fréquentation de ceux de ses amis à qui la
fortune permet de ne se livrer qu’aux plaisirs. Il accorde sa
subvention à une revue littéraire entreprenante, nouvellement
fondée, et qui d’ailleurs pratique savamment l’art de la publicité ;
mais c’est en se faisant tirer l’oreille, en laissant attendre sa
contribution : il affirme qu’il n’est pas en fonds, que c’est pour lui un
sacrifice assez pénible. Enfin, étant parvenu à placer quelques
« médaillons » dans une feuille quotidienne, qui n’est pas sans
rémunérer, quoique modestement, ses collaborateurs, il ne manque
pas chaque mois d’en aller toucher le prix, à peine suffisant pour
payer sa provision de cigarettes pour la semaine.
Je m’en suis étonné :
« C’est, m’a-t-il confié, que je ne veux point passer pour un
amateur.
— Pamphile, ai-je répondu, un tel souci marque votre prudence.
Toutefois, peut-être celle-ci est-elle excessive ; je dois vous avouer
que, parvenu au déclin de mes jours, je ne distingue pas encore fort
bien ce que c’est qu’un amateur, que ce soit dans l’ordre des Lettres
ou celui des Beaux-Arts.
— La belle malice ! Un amateur est celui qui n’a pas besoin de
peindre, d’écrire ou de sculpter pour vivre !
— Vous allez bien vite. Il convient que je vous arrête : à ce
compte, Marcel Proust, qui jouissait de fort confortables revenus,
était un amateur. Pareillement l’est encore la comtesse Anna de
Noailles. Et même, si vous voulez bien y réfléchir, M. Édouard
Estaunié, élu par l’Académie française comme romancier, mais qui
gagnait fort honorablement sa vie en qualité d’ingénieur des
télégraphes… Je pourrais multiplier ces exemples. Permettez-moi
pourtant de vous rappeler encore que Chateaubriand, un homme de
lettres, n’est-ce pas ? le type au XIXe siècle, avec Alfred de Vigny, du
grand gentilhomme en même temps grand écrivain, touchait du
gouvernement de Sa Majesté Louis XVIII, quand il était
ambassadeur à Londres, quelque chose comme trois ou quatre cent
mille francs par an, beaucoup plus que ce que lui rapporta jamais le
Génie du Christianisme.
— J’entends. En effet, la matière est délicate, et la distinction
entre l’écrivain de profession et l’amateur plus difficile que je ne
pensais… Il faudrait donc dire : « On ne sait pas très bien ce que
c’est qu’un amateur. Est professionnel celui qui, quelles que soient
les ressources qu’il tient d’héritage ou d’emploi, est plus connu
comme artiste ou comme auteur que comme millionnaire, industriel
ou ambassadeur. »
— Soit. Mais vous devez reconnaître avec moi que cette
définition est assez vague. En somme, un bohème, Pamphile, un
bohème bien misérable, sans talent par surcroît, ou n’écrivant avec
talent que fort peu, par insouciance ou paresse, et vivant surtout de
subsides bénévoles, mériterait tout aussi bien, selon ce que vous
dites, d’être taxé d’amateur.
— Non pas ! Pour une raison qui me paraît évidente : qu’il ait du
talent ou n’en ait pas ; qu’il produise, ne produise pas, ou fort peu ;
que sa plume lui procure le pain quotidien ou en soit incapable, cela
ne l’empêche pas de n’être qu’écrivain. Un ouvrier qui chôme,
volontairement ou involontairement, n’en est pas moins un ouvrier, et
n’est que cela.
— A moins qu’il n’ait d’autres cordes à son arc, et qu’on ne le
condamne pour vagabondage spécial. Auquel cas il serait un ouvrier
amateur : cela se voit…
— Je vous parle sérieusement.
— Je vous demande pardon ; il est vrai que le sujet est grave, et
que je n’aurais pas dû plaisanter. Vous avez raison. En fait, si
Rothschild ou le roi d’Angleterre se mettaient à écrire cinq ou six
beaux romans, ou à peindre à fresque comme Michel-Ange, on
serait bien forcé de ne pas les considérer comme des amateurs. Ils
auraient deux professions parallèles, également sérieuses,
reconnues également : celle de banquier ou de souverain, et celle
d’artiste ou d’auteur… Mais alors, où est l’amateur ? Je vous en
supplie, dites-le-moi !
— Vous me troublez. C’est peut-être une espèce qui n’existe pas,
comme celle du serpent de mer.
— Mais le serpent de mer existe ! Du moins cela est assez
probable : on l’a vu, mais on ne l’a pas pris, voilà tout. Et il
semblerait tout d’abord qu’il y ait un degré de plus en faveur de
l’existence de l’amateur : on peut le voir, et le prendre sur le fait.
— En vérité ?
— En vérité ! On pourrait valablement soutenir que l’amateur est
celui qui, ayant écrit n’importe quoi, va trouver un éditeur et, au lieu
d’exiger d’être payé pour son ouvrage, consent à payer pour être
publié. Il peut même aller plus loin, si ses moyens le lui permettent :
il peut dépenser, en publicité, pour faire connaître ses écrits, et leur
procurer des lecteurs, des sommes plus ou moins importantes…
C’est à cet écrivain-là que doit être réservé le nom d’amateur. Inutile
de dire qu’il est tenu, par les véritables professionnels, pour un fléau.
— Je le conçois…
— Oui, oui…
 — Vous n’avez pas l’air d’en être convaincu ?
— C’est que je ne le suis pas ! Pamphile, réfléchissez ! Combien
est-il, par an, de volumes de vers dont les éditeurs ont consenti à
solder les frais d’impression ? Et la plupart de leurs auteurs,
pourtant, ne sont que poètes, rien que poètes. Alors dites que tout
poète est un amateur ! Mais dans ce cas le terme sera un honneur
au lieu d’être une injure.
— Il faudrait donc faire exception pour les poètes ?
— Pour eux seulement, croyez-vous ? Écoutez ! Vous avez
entendu parler des Souvenirs entomologiques de Fabre, vous les
avez peut-être lus ? Fabre fut non seulement un grand esprit
scientifique, subtil et fort, qui s’est aventuré hors des chemins battus,
qui a posé à la théorie évolutionniste de l’origine des espèces des
questions auxquelles celle-ci n’a pas encore répondu. C’était un
grand, un très grand écrivain, dont la langue imagée, à la fois
populaire et latine, ne doit rien à personne : un créateur. Eh bien, les
Souvenirs entomologiques, œuvre de toute sa vie, formaient dix gros
volumes. Durant des années, cet homme sans argent, sans
relations, les a promenés d’éditeur en éditeur. On lui répliquait :
« Des histoires sur les insectes ? Ça n’intéresse personne ! Et dix
volumes ! Écrits par un inconnu, un monsieur qui vit en province, et
dont les thèses, les conclusions, sont en opposition avec celles des
savants les plus autorisés… Nous ne pouvons rien risquer là-
dessus. Combien voulez-vous donner ?… Et encore, nous ne
savons guère si nous accepterions : les « comptes d’auteur », ça
compromet le bon renom d’une librairie ! »
« A la fin, pourtant, Fabre rencontra un éditeur qui lui fit une
proposition d’une générosité inouïe, miraculeuse ! Il consentit à
publier ces gros bouquins à ses frais, à ses risques. Fabre ne
toucherait rien, bien entendu, mais il n’aurait rien à payer. C’était
admirable, inespéré. Il accepta…
« Je me hâte de dire qu’après un succès qui se fit longtemps,
très longtemps attendre, l’éditeur modifia les conditions du traité à
l’avantage du bel et modeste observateur de l’Harmas… Mais enfin,