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An essay on
“Unintended Consequences of the Welfare State” submitted to the 1st Gary S. ... SUMMARY:
The British Welfare State, like those in other industrialised countries, has been a political and ideological battleground since its inception in the 1940s. Planned, introduced and encouraged by technocrats such as Sir William Beveridge and John Maynard Keynes who believed that the problems of rising unemployment, poverty and deprivation caused by the aftermath of the Second World War could better be solved by state intervention. The technocrats viewed the state as the sure means of restoring economical and social benefits to the British society. They envisaged that state funded measures guided by careful analysis of the social problems followed by the construction of solutions through professional expertise offered the best approach for success. Hence, the Beveridge Report on Social Insurance and Allied services in 1942 became the blueprint for Welfare State and was accepted by all the major political parties.
Today, Welfare State dreams have been undermined, in part, by political controversy. In Britain as well as in other western countries there is disenchantment with the ways in which the Welfare State has developed. There are diverging views on the welfare services that ought to exist, how they ought to be organised, and in particular what role the state should play in the provision of welfare. The public is, however, adamant that welfare support should not be cut off from the poor. ... In Britain all sides of the political parties are dissatisfied with Beveridge inspired Welfare State; the New Right has denounced the profligacy of public services and the traditional left has questioned their paternalistic and bureaucratic character. Perhaps the greatest myth of the Welfare State is that despite the enormous public money that is spent to fund it, there is still rising long-term unemployment, increasing violence and growing poverty in many homes and urban slums. Whether the on-going public debate will lead to a restructuring of the Welfare State to a more efficient and effective system that will create the New Britain envisaged by Beveridge in 1942 remained to be seen.
In addition to the political controversy, the Beveridge inspired Welfare State has been undermined, in part, by the unforeseen economic recession, technological advances and the opening-up of free international trade. ... Attempts of governments in Britain to restructure welfare services failed to reduce unemployment or public spending. ... It appears that there is still plenty out there to keep the politicians busy to sort out whether Welfare State, a system inspired to help the unfortunates make a difference, can ever meet the promise of Beveridge new Jerusalem for all. ...
The British Welfare State, like those in other industrialised countries, has been a political and ideological controversy since its inception at the end of the Second World War 1-3. It was planned, introduced and encouraged by technocrats such as Sir William Beveridge and John Maynard Keynes who believed that state intervention would bring both economic and social benefits. Appreciation of the extent to how far the dreams of the founders have been achieved requires an understanding of the social and economic climate at the time, an examination of the basic principles and the rationale upon which the Welfare State were founded. This is particularly necessary because the ideology of the Welfare State was inspired by experts outside the mainstream of political parties. Nevertheless, the concept of the Welfare State was endorsed by all the major political parties. This picture has changed dramatically since the inception of Welfare State. ... Here too, it was the state’s prime duty to begin to house, educate and care for the health of all its citizens. ... The basic commitment to welfare was sustained by all the major political parties and this was to be the beginning of the British Welfare State 1-3. ... It balanced the personal duty to contribute in work with the duty of the state to provide a reasonable chance for a job. ...
Even when no social institution stands still and none is perfect even at the time of its creation, it can be argued that the period from 1945 to 1979, when Margaret Thatcher was elected, represented some era of consensus about the Welfare State 2, 3. From this period on, the Welfare State became increasingly less as the centrepiece of political consensus than as an unhappy compromise to which few owed any continuing allegiance. The political conflict was about the nature of welfare and the role the state should continue to play 4. The Fabian assumptions which underlined the post-war consensus about welfare was under fierce criticism. The Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher brought laissez-faire individualism into its welfare politics, an ideology pursued by the Liberal Party for most of the nineteenth century. In its approach to welfare politics, the Labour Party has drawn on Fabianism, Feminism and Socialism. The Welfare State has thus entered into the political arena. ... It was therefore not surprising to see that the government of the day developed and fought for distinctive visions of what it believed the relationship between the state and welfare ought to be. Consequently, the original ideology upon which welfare was founded had to be revised and, no doubt, will continue to be revised accordingly as new issues arise in political and economic conditions in British society or when another political party is voted into office.
It has often been argued that the post-war Welfare State was accepted by the major political parties so that the British society could collectively pick-up the pieces after the aftermath of the war. ... Finally, social policy such as the Welfare State could not be pursued in a vacuum, the other key players in this debate included the individual, the state, global economic recession and the burden of public spending on private enterprise. ... Any attempts to restructure welfare will provoke further considerable debate. What is clear is that the institutions of Welfare State are genuinely popular with the mass electorate of all major political parties and it is this which both brought it into being and sustained it. The economic and political consequences of dismantling its infrastructure would be too much for any industrialised government to face. ... Consequences of the welfare state
“Rising long-term unemployment, increasing violence, growing poverty in urban slums, environmental deterioration and a general realisation that something fundamental has gone wrong. ...
As discussed above, Welfare State was planned, introduced and encouraged by good men who believed in Fabianism ideology and hoped that the British society would achieve economic and social benefits through state intervention. Today, the Welfare State dreams appear to be in a disarray and only accommodate the failings of our society without ever addressing them. Most of the welfare services are executed only to alleviate the symptoms of the failings of the society while aggravating their fundamental causes. At times, the welfare benefits paid out have been generous, but more often they have been motivated by short-term political electorate gains and weakness. ... The consequences of the failing of our society were brilliantly summarised in the above quotation from James Goldsmith 5. I will speculate on how the expectations of the founders of the Welfare State back-fired into a number of unintended consequences such as rising long-term unemployment, increasing violence and growing poverty in urban slums. ... Welfare weakens civil society by creating dependency
The worth of a state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it. ... Welfare State is thought to have negative effects on an individual’s natural responsibility, his personal liberty and moral growth because the benefits are paid out too readily and at a level which make paid work unattractive. ...
In my view the purpose of Welfare State is to provide a safety net for those who temporarily or permanently are incapable of looking after themselves. The simple fact is that welfare benefit is paid out too readily and at levels which has created a problem. The expansion of Welfare State provision has led to a growing number of individuals dependent on state benefits 5.
Approximate Word count = 6710
Approximate Pages = 26.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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