Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: Towards a Reinterpretation of the History of Welfare Economics
- I CAMBRIDGE WELFARE ECONOMICS AND THE WELFARE STATE
- II OXFORD ETHICS AND THE PROBLEM OF WELFARE
- III WELFARE ECONOMICS IN THE POLICY ARENA
- 8 ‘The Great Educator of Unlikely People’: H. G. Wells and the Origins of the Welfare State
- 9 Whose Welfare State? Beveridge versus Keynes
- 10 Beveridge on a Welfare Society: An Integration of His Trilogy
- IV POSTSCRIPT
- Index
- References
9 - Whose Welfare State? Beveridge versus Keynes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: Towards a Reinterpretation of the History of Welfare Economics
- I CAMBRIDGE WELFARE ECONOMICS AND THE WELFARE STATE
- II OXFORD ETHICS AND THE PROBLEM OF WELFARE
- III WELFARE ECONOMICS IN THE POLICY ARENA
- 8 ‘The Great Educator of Unlikely People’: H. G. Wells and the Origins of the Welfare State
- 9 Whose Welfare State? Beveridge versus Keynes
- 10 Beveridge on a Welfare Society: An Integration of His Trilogy
- IV POSTSCRIPT
- Index
- References
Summary
[Keynes] told me that he no longer believed in the importance of economic reconstruction: what we wanted was more culture and beauty and noble motive, and some sort of creed and code of conduct. But he so sorrowfully admitted that he had no definite social creed and did not see the emergence of a new code of conduct.
(B. Webb to W. Beveridge, 13 July 1936)[Your general scheme] leave[s] me in a state of wild enthusiasm … I think it a vast constructive reform of real importance and I am relieved to find that it is so financially possible.
(J. M. Keynes to W. Beveridge, 17 March 1942)INTRODUCTION
There is a widespread tendency to portray Keynes as the founding father of the Welfare State and to claim that the Keynesian revolution provided the justification for the need of a large public sector in the economy. As the literature has amply shown, there are scant grounds for these claims.
Keynes's criticism of laissez-faire policy and disbelief in the smooth working of market forces is antecedent to the General Theory, where the case for intervention is made when faced with aggregate demand failure. The policy message in the General Theory is to sustain the level of investment, but this should be interpreted more in the sense of ‘stabilizing business confidence’ (Bateman 1996: 148) than as a plea for debt-financed public works (Kregel 1985).
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- No Wealth but LifeWelfare Economics and the Welfare State in Britain, 1880–1945, pp. 189 - 206Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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