Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T23:50:33.864Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Enterprise and Welfare States: a Comparative Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Jose Harris
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

DO ‘welfare states’ enhance or subvert economic enterprise, civic virtue, private moral character, the integrity of social life? Though these questions have a piquantly contemporary ring in modern British politics, they are nevertheless old quandaries in the history of social policy. Since the seventeenth century, if not earlier, practitioners, theorists and critics of public welfare schemes have argued for and against such schemes in contradictory and adversarial terms; claiming on the one hand that social welfare schemes would supply a humanitarian corrective to the rigours of a market economy; and on the other hand that they would support and streamline market forces by enhancing individual and collective efficiency. Similarly, for several hundred years models of civic morality which emphasize independence and self-sufficiency have jostled with alternative models which emphasize paternalism, altruism and organic solidarity. Few phases of social policy in Britain and elsewhere have not contained elements of more than one approach. Even the New Poor Law, notorious for its subordination to market pressures, nevertheless harboured certain residual anti-market principles and often lapsed into practices that were suspiciously communitarian; whilst Edwardian New Liberalism, famous for its philosophy of organic solidarism, in practice tempered social justice with the quest for ‘national efficiency’. These varying emphases have all been reflected in the fashions and phases of welfare state historiography—fashions and phases that appear to have been at least partly determined by the vagaries of prevailing political climate. Thus, in the aftermath of the Second World War, historians tended to portray the history of social policy as a series of governmental battles against private vested interests—battles in which the mantle of civic virtue was worn by an altruistic administrative elite, while civic vice was embodied in the motley crew of doctors, landlords, employers and insurance companies who viewed social welfare as a commodity in the market.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 40 , December 1990 , pp. 175 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 On the evolution of such dichotomies, see Hont, Istvan and Ignatieff, Michael (eds.), Wealth and Virtue. The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 1; Himmelfarb, Gertrude, The Idea of Poverty: England in the Early Industrial Age (1984), chs. 1 and 2Google Scholar; Thompson, E. P., ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century’, Past and Present, 50 (1971), 76–136CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Coats, A. W., ‘Contrary Moralities: Plebs, Paternalists and Political Economists’, Past and Present, 54 (1972), 130–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Crowther, M. A., The Workhouse System, 1834–1929. The history of an English social Institution (1981), esp. ch. 9Google Scholar; Thomson, David, ‘Welfare and the Historians’, in Bonfield, Lloyd, Smith, Richard M. and Wrightson, Keith, The World We Have Gained. Histories of Population and Social Structure (Oxford, 1986), 355–78Google Scholar.

3 Freeden, Michael, The New Liberalism. An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar; Searle, Geoffrey, The Quest for National Efficiency. A study in British Politics and British Political Thought 1899–1914 (Oxford, 1971), esp. 171–204Google Scholar.

4 Ginsberg, M. (ed.), Law and Opinion in England in the Twentieth Century (1959)Google Scholar; Finer, S., The Life and Times of Sir Edwin Chadwick (1952)Google Scholar; Lambert, Royston, Sir John Simon 1818–1904 and English Social Administration (1963)Google Scholar.

5 Jones, Gareth Stedman, Outcast London. A Study in Relations between the Classes (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar; Hay, J. R., ‘Employers' Attitudes to Social Policy and the Concept of Social Control, 1900–1920’, in Thane, P.M. (ed.) The Origins of British Social Policy (1978), 107–125Google Scholar; Davidson, Roger, Whitehall and the Labour Problem in late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain (1985)Google Scholar.

6 Seldon, Arthur, Taxation and Welfare. A Report on Private Opinion and Public Policy (1969)Google Scholar; Parker, Hermione, The Moral Hazard of Social Benefits. A study of the Impact of Social Benefits and Income Tax on Incentives to Work (1982)Google Scholar.

7 Barnett, Correlli, The Audit of War. The Illusion and Reality of Britain as a Great Nation (1986)Google Scholar.

8 B.B.C, Radio Four, ‘Any Questions’ programme, March 1987.

9 Barnett, , op. cit., 304Google Scholar.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid., 278–91.

12 Ibid., 13–19, 36–7, 279–304.

13 Ibid., 12–15, 213–33.

14 Ibid., 62, 93, 145–51.

15 OECD Social Policy Studies, Social Expenditure 1960–1990. Problems of Growth and Control (Paris 1985)Google Scholar; Rimlinger, Gaston, Welfare Policy and Industrialization in Europe, America and Russia (New York, 1971)Google Scholar; Kaim-Caudle, P. R., Comparative Social Policy and Social Security. A Ten Country Study (1973)Google Scholar; Mitchell, B. R., European Historical Statistics 1750–1975 (second revised edition, 1981)Google Scholar; Flora, Peter et al. , State, Economy and Society in Western Europe, 1815–1975. Vol. 1, The Growth of Mass Democracies and Welfare States. Vol. II, The Growth of Industrial Societies and Capitalist Economies (Frankfurt and London, 1983 and 1987)Google Scholar; Flora, Peter (ed.), Growth to Limits. The Western European Welfare States since world War Two, Vols. I, II and IV (New York and Berlin, 1987–1988)Google Scholar.

16 Flora, , State, Economy and Society, Vol. I, 456Google Scholar; James, Edward and Laurent, Andre, ‘Social Security: the European Experiment’, Social Trends, 5, 1974, 26–34Google Scholar.

17 Abel-Smith, Brian, An International Study of Health Expenditure, WHO Public Paper No. 32 (Geneva, 1967)Google ScholarPubMed; Report oj the Committee of Enquiry into the Cost of the National Health Service (Cmnd. 9663, 1956), 286–9.

18 Flora, , State, Economy and Society, Vol. I, 456–7Google Scholar; Abel-Smith, Brian and Maynard, Alan, The Organization, Financing and Cost of Health Care in the European Community (Commission of the European Communities, Social Policy Series, No. 36, Brussels, 1978), esp. pp. 108–12Google Scholar.

19 Kohl, Jurgen, ‘Trends and Problems in Postwar Public Expenditure Development in Western Europe and North America’, in Flora, Peter and Heidenheimer, Arnold J. (eds.) The Development of Welfare States in Europe and America (1981), 307–44, esp. Table 9.4 on p. 317Google Scholar.

20 Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat, ), Social Indicators for the European Community 1960–1975 (Brussels, 1977)Google Scholar, Table V/I, 184–5, and Table V/4, 190–1.

21 OECD, , Social Expenditure 1960–1990, 21Google Scholar. See also Kohl, Jurgen, loc. cit., 319Google Scholar.

22 Wilensky, Harold L., ‘Democratic Corporatism, Consensus, and Social Policy’, in The Welfare State in Crisis. An account of the Conference on Social Policies in the 1980s, 20–23 10 1980, 191–2 (OECD, Paris, 1981)Google Scholar.

23 Flora, , State, Economy and Society, Vol. I, 459, 462–551Google Scholar; James, Edward and Laurent, Andre, loc. cit., 27–8Google Scholar.

24 Flora, , op. cit., 462–3, 476–7, 483–4, 490–1, 504–5, 518–19, 525–6, 532–3, 539–40, 546–7Google Scholar. One major cause of the growth of Britain's public assistance sector was that her social insurance benefits were so much lower than in most other western European countries; hence, the phenomenon of ‘supplementary benefit’.

25 The story of the gradual dismantling and transformation of the Poor Law remains to be told. For analysis of some of the later stages of that process, see Deacon, Alan, ‘An End to the Means Test? Social Security and the Attlee Government’, Journal of Social Policy, xi (1982), 289–306CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hall, Phoebe, Land, Hilary, Parker, Roy and Webb, Adrian, Change, Choice and Conflict in Social Policy (1975), 410–71Google Scholar.

26 James, Edward and Laurent, Andre, loc. cit, 31–2Google Scholar

27 Apart from Britain, only Denmark had a tax-financed health service with 100% coverage (Abel-Smith and Maynard, op. cit., pp. 9–102, and Table 4 on p. 116).

28 The Guillebaud committee in 1956, for example, found that most NHS patients firmly believed that they had paid for their treatment through contributory national insurance.

29 Barnett, , op. cit., 26–31, 45–9Google Scholar.

30 Barnett, Correlli, ‘Decline and Fall of Beveridge's New Jerusalem’, Daily Telegraph, 1 12 1986Google Scholar.

31 Barnett, , Audit of War, 19, 25Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., 30–32.

33 Ibid., 276–91.

34 Harriet Martineau, Joseph Chamberlain, Charles Booth and Helen Bosanquet spring to mind as prominent examples. The phrase ‘state sternness’ comes from a famous letter written by Joseph Chamberlain to Beatrice Webb, in which he stressed the need to legitimise the state's ‘power of being very strict with the loafer and the confirmed pauper’ [quoted in Fraser, Peter, Joseph Chamberlain: Radicalism and Empire (1966), 125]Google Scholar.

35 Harris, Jose, William Beveridge. A Biography (Oxford, 1977), 271–2Google Scholar.

36 Barnett, , op. cit., 228–30Google Scholar. On Beveridge's, early admiration for Bismarckian welfare institutions, an admiration that inspired his whole subsequent career as a social reformer, see the series of articles on ‘Social Reform: How Germany deals with it’, Morning Post, 09 1907Google Scholar.

37 Harris, , op. cit., 156–7, 166Google Scholar.

38 Ibid., 99–100, 171–6, 323, 353, 355–6.

39 Beveridge Papers, VIII 45, Advisory Panel on Home Affairs, minutes, 9 july 1942.

40 Harris, , op. cit., 396–9Google Scholar; McNicol, John, The Movement for Family Allowances 1918–45. A Study in Social Policy Development (1980), 185–7Google Scholar.

41 Beveridge Papers, IXa, 37(2), ‘Social Insurance—General Considerations’, by Beveridge, W. H., 07 1941Google Scholar; PRO, CAB 87/76, ‘Basic Problems of Social Security with Heads of a Scheme’, by Beveridge, W. H., 11 12 1941Google Scholar; and PRO, CAB 87/76, ‘Finance of Social Insurance. Some Statistical Short Cuts’, by Beveridge, W. H., 19 12 1941Google Scholar.

42 Harris, , op. cit., 407–12Google Scholar. Beveridge agreed with the Treasury to keep the proposed public costs of his scheme to within £100 million p.a. during the first five years of its operation. The total sum expended by public authorities on all social services (not just social insurance) in 1938 was £596.3 million.

43 Beveridge Papers VIII, files 28 and 37. The whole question of the benefit levels envisaged in the Beveridge Report has recently been analysed in detail by Professor John Veit-Wilson, who concludes that, beneath Beveridge's somewhat ambiguous utterances on this issue, there was no intention on Beveridge's part to accept the more broadly-based and relativistic definition of need currently being propounded by Seebohm Rowntree (John Veit-Wilson, ‘Genesis of confusion: the Beveridge Committee's Poverty Line for Social Security’, paper for the seminar at the Suntory Toyota International Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines, London School of Economics, 1 Nov. 1989). I am grateful to Professor Veit-Wilson for letting me see his paper.

44 Social Insurance and Allied Services, Cmd. 6404, 1942, 92–5.

45 Ibid., para. 292.

46 PRO, CAB 87/78, Social Insurance Committee minutes, 17 June 1942, QQ. 4720, 4726; Barnett, , op. cit., 30Google Scholar.

47 Social Insurance and Allied Services, 11.

48 Beveridge, W. H., Unemployment: a Problem of Industry (1930 ed.), 288–94Google Scholar.

49 Social Insurance and Allied Services, paras. 369, 440; W. H. Beveridge, Full Employment in a Free Society (1944), 173.

50 Hubert Henderson Papers, memorandum on ‘The Beveridge Proposals’, by Keynes, J. M., 20 07 1942Google Scholar; Norman Chester Papers, ‘Finance of the Proposals in the Beveridge Report’, by Chester, D. N., 18 11 1942Google Scholar.

51 Cherwell papers, H256, memorandum by an unnamed economist to Lord Cherwell, 22 Jan. 1943. I am most grateful to Dr Derek Fraser, who has been working for some years on the making and impact of the Beveridge report, for drawing my attention to this paper.

52 Abel-Smith, Brian, ‘Public Expenditure on the Social Services’, Social Trends, 1, 1970, 19Google Scholar; James, Edward and Laurent, Andre, loc. cit., 26–34Google Scholar; Kohl, Jurgen, loc. cit., 307–44Google Scholar.

53 Marshall, T. H., Sociology at the Crossroads and other Essays (1953), 267–308Google Scholar.

54 Wilensky, Harold L., ‘Leftism, Catholicism and Democratic Corporatism: the Role of Political Parties in Recent Welfare State Development’, in Flora, Peter and Heidenheimer, Arnold, op. cit., 345–82, and esp. 356–62Google Scholar.

55 Barnett, , op. cit., 13–18, 25, 243, 250Google Scholar.

56 Ibid., 14–15.

57 Dalton, an atheist, had ‘abandoned Christianity on the playing fields of Eton’, Pimlott, Ben, Hugh Dalton (1985), 35Google Scholar.

58 Barnett, , op. cit., 15, 253Google Scholar.

59 Conservative Party archives, CRD 600/02, Geoffrey Faber to Walter Oakeshott, 27 Aug. 1942; and CRD 600/05, ‘The Ultimate Religious Field and the State’, n.d.; CRD 058, ‘Planning for Freedom: Some Remarks on the Necessity for Creating a Body which could Co-ordinate Theory and Practice in our Future Policy’, by Karl Mannheim. On the curious vogue for Mannheim's ideas among certain sections of the Conservative intelligentsia in this period, see Loader, Colin, The Intellectual Development of Karl Mannheim, Culture, Politics and Planning (Cambridge, 1985), 149–77Google Scholar.

60 CRD, 600/05, press cuttings, 1942.

61 Flora, Peter and Heidenheimer, Arnold, op. cit., 19Google Scholar.

62 My point applies to the financing of social security rather than to its organisation. One respect in which the British system is indubitably ‘Beveridgean’ (or at least stems from the tradition of administrative reform of which Beveridge was an exemplar) is that it is nationally uniform, centralised and bureaucratic, whereas most continental systems allow much more scope for pluralism, localism and democratic self-government. An observor writing a century ago would surely have predicted the exact opposite. The role played by social policy in bringing about this kind of transformation of political culture in Britain and elsewhere deserves further analysis.

63 See e.g. Smith, Harold L. (ed.), War and Social Change, British Society in the Second World War (Manchester, 1986)Google Scholar; Kopsch, H., ‘The Approach of the Conservative Party to Social Policy during World War Two’, London Ph.D. thesis, 1970Google Scholar; Jeffreys, Kevin, ‘British Politics and Social Policy during the Second World War’, H.J., XXX (1987), 123–44Google Scholar.