Welfare state
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There are three main interpretations of the idea of a welfare state:
- the provision of welfare services by the state.
- an ideal model in which the state assumes primary responsibility for the welfare of its citizens. This responsibility is comprehensive[citation needed], because all aspects of welfare are considered; a "safety net" is not enough, nor are minimum standards[citation needed]. It is universal, because it covers every person as a matter of right.
- the provision of welfare in society. In many "welfare states", especially in continental Europe, welfare is not actually provided by the state, but by a combination of independent, voluntary, mutualist and government services. The functional provider of benefits and services may be a central or state government, a state-sponsored company or agency, a private corporation, a charity or another form of non-profit organisation. However, this phenomenon has been more appropriately termed a "welfare society," and the term "welfare system" has been used to describe the range of welfare state and welfare society mixes that are found.[1]
Contents |
Etymology
The English term "welfare state" is believed to have been coined by Archbishop William Temple during the Second World War, contrasting wartime Britain with the "warfare state" of Nazi Germany.[2]
In German, a roughly equivalent term (Sozialstaat, "social state") had been in use since 1870. There had been earlier attempts to use the same phrase in English, for example in Munroe Smith's text "Four German Jurists",[3] but the term did not enter common use until William Temple popularized it. The Italian term "Social state" (Stato sociale) has the same origin.
In French, the synonymous term "providence state" (État-providence) was originally coined as a sarcastic pejorative remark used by opponents of welfare state policies during the Second Empire (1854-1870).
In Spanish and many other languages, an analogous term is used: estado del bienestar; translated literally: "state of well-being".
In Portuguese, a similar phrase exists: Estado Bem-Estar-Social; which means "well-being-social state".
The development of welfare states
An early version of the welfare state appeared in China during the Song Dynasty in the 11th century. Prime Minister Wang Anshi believed that the state was responsible for providing its citizens the essentials for a decent living standard. Accordingly, under his direction the state initiated agricultural loans to relieve the farming peasants. He appointed boards to regulate wages and plan pensions for the aged and unemployed. These reforms were known as the "new laws," New Policies, or xin fa.
Modern welfare states developed through a gradual process beginning in the late 19th century and continuing through the 20th. They differed from previous schemes of poverty relief due to their relatively universal coverage. The development of social insurance in Germany under Bismarck was particularly influential. Some schemes, like those in Scandinavia, were based largely in the development of autonomous, mutualist provision of benefits. Others were founded on state provision. The term was not, however, applied to all states offering social protection. The sociologist T.H. Marshall identified the welfare state as a distinctive combination of democracy, welfare and capitalism.
Examples of early welfare states in the modern world are Germany, all of the Nordic Countries, the Netherlands, Uruguay and New Zealand in the 1930s. Germany is generally held to be the first social welfare state. Changed attitudes in reaction to the Great Depression were instrumental in the move to the welfare state in many countries, a harbinger of new times where "cradle-to-grave" services became a reality after the poverty of the Depression. During the Great Depression, it was seen as an alternative "middle way" between communism and capitalism.[4] In the period following the Second World War, many countries in Europe moved from partial or selective provision of social services to relatively comprehensive coverage of the population.
The activities of present-day welfare states extend to the provision of both cash welfare benefits (such as old-age pensions or unemployment benefits) and in-kind welfare services (such as health or childcare services). Through these provisions, welfare states can affect the distribution of wellbeing and personal autonomy among their citizens, as well as influencing how their citizens consume and how they spend their time.[5][6]
After the discovery and inflow of the oil revenue, Saudi Arabia,[7][8] Kuwait, and United Arab Emirates all became welfare states. However, the services are strictly for citizens and these countries do not accept immigrants; even those born in these countries do not qualify for citizenship unless they are of the parentage belonging to their respective countries.
In the United Kingdom, the beginning of the modern welfare state was in 1911 when David Lloyd George suggested everyone in work should pay national insurance contribution for unemployment and health benefits from work.
In 1942, the 'Social Insurance and Allied Services' was created by Sir William Beveridge in order to aid those who were in need of help, or in poverty. Beveridge worked as a volunteer for the poor, and set up national insurance. He stated that 'All people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed.' The basic assumptions of the report were the National Health Service, which provided free health care to the UK. The Universal Child Benefit was a scheme to give child benefits, which encouraged people to have children so they could afford to keep them alive and not for them to starve to death. This was particularly useful after the second world war, where the population in England declined, so encouragement for new babies was encouraged, which sparked the baby boom. The impact of the report was huge and 600,000 copies were made. He recommended to the government that they should find ways of tackling the five giants, being Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. He argued to cure these problems, the government should provide adequate income to people, adequate health care, adequate education, adequate housing and adequate employment. Before 1939, health care had to be paid for, this was done through a vast network of friendly societies, trade unions and other insurance companies which counted the vast majority of the UK working population as members. These friendly societies provided insurance for sickness, unemployment and invalidity, therefore providing people with an income when they were unable to work. But because of the 1942 Beveridge Report, in 5th July 1948, the National Insurance Act, National Assistance Act and National Health Service Act came into force, thus this is the day that the modern UK welfare state was founded.
Debating the welfare state
The concept of the welfare state remains controversial, and there is continuing debate over governments' responsibility for their citizens' welfare. Here, it is crucial to clarify what exactly one means by welfare state. First, a welfare state is not a state run economy. The welfare state refers to the programs paid by the government that provide basic temporary and conditional finacial help to those legally unable to provide to themselves because of their current economy situation due to health problems, mental diseases, etc or because of a major natural disaster or terrorist attack.
Arguments in favor
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Arguments against
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Discussion of some of the criticisms
Some criticism of welfare states concern the idea that a welfare state makes citizens dependent and less inclined to work. Certain studies indicate there is no association between economic performance and welfare expenditure in developed countries (see A. B. Atkinson, Incomes and the Welfare State, Cambridge University Press, 1995) and that there is no evidence for the contention that welfare states impede progressive social development. R. E. Goodin et al, in The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 1999), show that on some economic and social indicators the United States performs worse than the Netherlands, which has a high commitment to welfare provision. However, the United States leads most welfare states on certain economic indicators, such as GDP per capita (although in 2006 it had a lower GDP per capita than Norway).[3] The United States also has a low unemployment rate (although not as low as Denmark, Norway) and a high GDP growth rate, at least in comparison to other developed countries (its growth rate, however, is lower than Finland's and Sweden's, two nations with relatively small populations but comparatively high commitments to welfare provision; the United States' growth rate is also lower than the world's overall).[4][5] The United States also leads most welfare states in the ownership of consumer goods. For example, it has more TV's per capita [6], more personal computers per capita [7], and more radios per capita [8] than what people would call welfare states.
Another criticism comes from Classical Liberalism. Namely, that Welfare is theft of Property or Labor. This criticism is based upon classical liberalist ideals, wherein a citizen owns his body, and owns the product of his body's labor (i.e. goods, services, or money). Note that in this definition property that is inherited is not included. So to remove money through legal mechanisms set by a democratically elected assembly from the working or non-working citizen and give it to a non-working or handicapped citizen or to a child is argued to be theft of the worker's property and/or labor and a violation of his property rights.
A third criticism is that the welfare state allegedly provides its dependents with a similar level of income to the minimum wage. Critics argue that fraud and economic inactivity are apparently quite common now in the United Kingdom and France. Some conservatives in the UK claim that the welfare state has produced a generation of dependents who rely solely upon the state for income and support instead of working even though assistance is only given to those unable to work so that actually being able to work and instead relying on the state for income is a criminal offence. The welfare state in the UK was created to provide a carefully selected number of people with a subsistence level of benefits in order to alleviate poverty, but that as a matter of opinion has been overly expanded to provide a large number of people indiscriminately with more money than the country can afford. Some feel that this argument is demonstrably false: the benefits system in the UK hands out considerably less money than the national minimum wage. On the other hand, benefits handed-out in the U.S. often exceed $10 an hour (varying state-to-state), when one accounts for all the free services provided (free housing, free food, free welfare checks), such that it's wiser economically not to work, rather than to accept $6 at the local retail store. One must not forget that even working families may be eligible for benefits when even when working their income does not cover their or their children's basic needs.
A fourth criticism of the welfare state is that it results in high taxes. This is sometimes true, as evidenced by places like Denmark ( at 50.4% of GDP in 2002) and Sweden (tax level at 50.2% of GDP in 2002). Such high taxes do not necessarily mean less income. The money the state taxes goes directly to the people it is taxed from. The difference is that the way this money is spent is determined by the government rather than by the individual.
A fifth criticism of the welfare state is the belief that welfare services provided by the state are more expensive and less efficient than the same services would be if provided by private businesses. In 2000, Professors Louis Kaplow and Steven Shafell published two papers, arguing that any social policy based on such concepts as justice or fairness would result in an economy which is Pareto inefficient. Anything which is supplied free at the point of consumption would be subject to artificially high demand, whereas resources would be more properly allocated if provision reflected the cost. However it is not clear how this would apply to services such as health and education, where individuals are unlikely to demand more services that are actually required, where the benefits of providing the service flow through to all levels of society (by reducing disease, and increasing the wealth-creation abilities of the population).
The most extreme criticisms of states and governments, are from anarchists, who believe that all states and governments are undesirable and/or unnecessary. Most anachists believe that while social welfare gives a certain level of independecy from the market and individual capitalists, it creates dependence to the state, which is the institution that, according to this view, supports and protects capitalism in the first place. Nonetheless, according to Noam Chomsky, "social democrats and anarchists always agreed, fairly generally, on so-called 'welfare state measures'" and "Anarchists propose other measures to deal with these problems, without recourse to state authority." [9] Anarchists believe in stopping welfare programs only if it means abolishing government and capitalism as well. [10]
The welfare state and social expenditure
Welfare provision in the contemporary world tends to be more advanced in the countries with stronger and more developed economies. Poor countries, on the other hand, tend to have limited social services. Within developed economies, however, there is very little correlation between economic performance and welfare expenditure.[11] There are individual exceptions on both sides, but as the table below suggests, the higher levels of social expenditure in the European Union are not associated with lower growth, lower productivity or higher unemployment, nor with higher growth, higher productivity or lower unemployment. Likewise, the pursuit of free market policies leads neither to guaranteed prosperity nor to social collapse. The table shows that countries with more limited expenditure, like Australia, Canada and Japan, do no better or worse economically than countries with high social expenditure, like Belgium, Germany and Denmark. The table does not show the effect of expenditure on income inequalities, and does not encompass some other forms of welfare provision (such as occupational welfare).
The table below shows, first, welfare expenditure as a percentage of GDP for some (selected) OECD member states, and second, GDP per capita (PPP US$) in 2001:
Nation | Welfare expenditure (% of GDP) | GDP per capita (PPP US$) |
---|---|---|
Denmark | 29.2 | $29,000 |
Sweden | 28.9 | $24,180 |
France | 28.5 | $23,990 |
Germany | 27.4 | $25,350 |
Belgium | 27.2 | $25,520 |
Switzerland | 26.4 | $28,100 |
Austria | 26.0 | $26,730 |
Finland | 24.8 | $24,430 |
Netherlands | 24.3 | $27,190 |
Italy | 24.4 | $24,670 |
Greece | 24.3 | $17,440 |
Norway | 23.9 | $29,620 |
Poland | 23.0 | $9,450 |
United Kingdom | 21.8 | $24,160 |
Portugal | 21.1 | $18,150 |
Luxembourg | 20.8 | $53,780 |
Czech Republic | 20.1 | $14,720 |
Hungary | 20.1 | $12,340 |
Iceland | 19.8 | $29,990 |
Spain | 19.6 | $20,150 |
New Zealand | 18.5 | $19,160 |
Australia | 18.0 | $25,370 |
Slovak Republic | 17.9 | $11,960 |
Canada | 17.8 | $27,130 |
Japan | 16.9 | $25,130 |
United States | 14.8 | $34,320 |
Ireland | 13.8 | $32,410 |
Mexico | 11.8 | $8,430 |
South Korea | 6.1 | $15,090 |
Figures from the OECD[12] and the UNDP.[13]
Note: no data for China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, and Pakistan, who are not members of the OECD.
See also
- Health care
- Mixed economy
- National Health Service
- Nationalization
- Public ownership
- Privatization
- Social security
- Social stratification
- Social welfare provision
- Social work
- Swedish welfare
- Folkhemmet
- Corporate welfare
- Social Protection
- Fifth power
References
- ^ Gould, Arthur (1993). Capitalist Welfare Systems. New York: Longman. ISBN 0-582-08349-4.
- ^ Megginson, William L.; Jeffry M. Netter (June 2001). "From State to Market: A Survey of Empirical Studies on Privatization" (PDF). Journal of Economic Literature 39 (2): 321-389. ISSN 0022-0515.
- ^ Smith, Munroe (December 1901). "Four German Jurists. IV". Political Science Quarterly 16 (4): 669. ISSN 0032-3195.
- ^ "welfare state." O'Hara, Phillip Anthony (editor). Encyclopedia of political economy. Routledge 1999. p. 1245
- ^ Esping-Andersen, Gøsta (1999). Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-874200-2.
- ^ Rice, James Mahmud; Robert E. Goodin, Antti Parpo (September-December 2006). "The Temporal Welfare State: A Crossnational Comparison" (PDF). Journal of Public Policy 26 (3): 195-228. ISSN 0143-814X.
- ^ http://saudinf.com/main/h814.htm
- ^ http://www.mofa.gov.sa/Detail.asp?InSectionID=1516&InNewsItemID=1746
- ^ http://www.zmag.org/chomsky_repliesana.htm Noam Chomsky on anarchist support for 'welfare state' policies
- ^ [1]
- ^ Atkinson, A. B. (1995). Incomes and the Welfare State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-55796-8.
- ^ Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). "Welfare Expenditure Report" (Microsoft Excel Workbook), OECD, 2001.
- ^ United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2003). "Human Development Indicators", Human Development Report 2003. New York: Oxford University Press for the UNDP.
- Stein Kuhnle Survival of the European Welfare State 2000 Routledge ISBN 041521291X
External links
- Center for Public Policy
- Social Policy Virtual Library
- Social Sciences Information Gateway
- The Welfare State in Australia
- Race and Welfare in the United States
- The Welfare State: A Critique
- Shavell's criticism of social justice programmes
- Kaplow's criticism of social justice programmes.
- World report on Welfare State
- Centreflunk :: Hiding Your Options
- Centreflunk Forum :: Discussing Your Options Centrelink :: Australia's Welfare Payment Agency forum