Social insurance, social security, the social services, social welfare, social work … the terms are familiar, banal. But what is implied by the term ‘social’? This is what I want to explore here. From this perspective, I want to examine some aspects of a phenomenon that is frequently termed ‘the crisis of the welfare state’. This ‘crisis’ can be understood in many different ways. Some suggest that there are, indeed, widespread changes in political ideologies and social arrangements with regard to welfare and security, and these can be understood as inevitable responses to fundamental transformations in political realities: the globalization of economic competition; increased life expectancy; the rise of individualism … I find this argument partial: such phenomena may be significant, but they do not in themselves determine how they are responded to. Others doubt the extent to which this so-called crisis of the welfare state exists as an international phenomenon, and suggest that, as ever, politicians, intellectuals and ideologues in the English-speaking world are mistaking their own idiosyncrasies for the tide of world history. I have some sympathy with this view. It would certainly be misleading to consider the British case to be paradigmatic. Many dispute whether developments in the politics and government of security in the United States amounted to even a minimal welfare state. Social states developed in different ways in other European countries and in Canada and Australasia.