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Towards a Sustainable Welfare State: The Role of Universal Basic Services
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- Anna Coote
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- Journal:
- Social Policy and Society / Volume 21 / Issue 3 / July 2022
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 04 October 2021, pp. 473-483
- Print publication:
- July 2022
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- Article
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The idea of pooling resources and sharing risks to provide universal services according to need not ability to pay was at the heart of the post-war settlement. However, decades of market ideology and deep spending cuts have left most services starved of power and resources. Universal Basic Services (UBS) offers a principled framework for policy and practice that aims to ensure everyone has access to life’s essentials. Based on need theory it combines universality with sufficiency to provide a secure social foundation for all within planetary boundaries. Needs are met in different ways, combining collective and individual measures, as illustrated by examples of childcare, housing and food. UBS can be combined with an income guarantee to ensure no-one’s income falls below an agreed level of sufficiency. Cash and services, which represent a ‘social wage’, are best understood as two sides of the same coin, supporting rather than competing with one another.
3 - The Importance of Collective Control
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- By Anna Coote
- Edited by Henry Tam
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- Book:
- Whose Government Is It?
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 27 April 2022
- Print publication:
- 27 February 2019, pp 39-56
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Summary
If the aim is to build more cooperative relationships between citizens and the state, much depends on how far citizens are willing to engage in the process of change – especially those who are least active and vocal in political decision making.
It is rarely just apathy that makes people reluctant to engage. More often, it is a well-founded scepticism that anything one says or does can make a useful difference – and this feeling is particularly widespread among those who are poor and powerless. It is part of an exclusionary process, driven by unequal power relationships across economic, political, social and cultural domains, and characterised by unjust distributions of resources, capabilities and rights (Popay, 2010, p 295). The problem is intensified when people are invited to engage in decisions – often by well-intentioned public authorities – only to find that nothing changes as a result. At this point, scepticism combines with ‘consultation fatigue’ (Richards et al 2007, p 16), to produce a cynicism about the chances of anything called ‘engagement’ or ‘participation’ being more than a cheap trick. These feelings give rise to two significant barriers to cooperation: people lack confidence in their own ability to make a difference; and they distrust the efficacy of the process (of building cooperation) and the motivations behind it.
Both problems can be traced to the distribution of power and, particularly, control. Degrees of confidence and trust are strongly influenced by how far people control what happens when they engage with the state. Understanding what constitutes control and what enables people to exercise it is therefore vital to renewing state‒citizen cooperation. Whatever the aims or intentions of public authorities, whatever methods of engagement and decision making they employ, they will fail unless they start from here.
In this chapter I focus first on control: how it is defined, its component parts, how it is generated and the implications for systems change. I then turn to the concept of the commons and the process of commoning – by which I mean claiming and controlling a range of resources that are essential for meeting human needs – and explore the implications for policy and practice.
Defining control
The terms ‘power’ and ‘control’ are sometimes used interchangeably.
two - People, planet, power: toward a new social settlement
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- By Anna Coote
- Edited by Bryn Jones, University of Bath, Mike O'Donnell
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- Book:
- Alternatives to Neoliberalism
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 05 April 2022
- Print publication:
- 08 February 2017, pp 41-58
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Summary
Introduction
As we imagine what life could be like beyond neoliberalism, we must envisage a new social settlement. This would be based on the best elements of the post-war settlement, which was designed to support the market economy and achieve full employment by introducing a welfare state and a degree of governmental macroeconomic management. At the same time it would address contemporary challenges – notably deepening social inequalities, accelerating threats to the natural environment and accumulations of power by wealthy elites.
At the New Economics Foundation (NEF) we have argued the case for a settlement designed around three main goals to address these challenges: social justice, environmental sustainability, and a more equal distribution of power. The goals are interdependent and can be summed up as aiming for ‘sustainable social justice’, which is taken to require a fair and equitable distribution of social, environmental, economic and political resources between people, places and – where possible – between generations. There are no quick fixes. To build a new social settlement, we need to change systems and structures over the medium and long term, rather than looking for technical solutions to immediate problems within policy silos.
Our framing for a new settlement pays close attention to the assets embedded in people's lives and relationships and to the diverse products and features of the natural environment. In Karl Polanyi's ([1944] 1957) terms, they are ‘fictitious commodities’ and in Nancy Fraser's (2014) they are ‘conditions of possibility’ for the functioning of capitalist markets. In conventional economics, they are treated as saleable items, valued only as inputs to production. We maintain that they must be valued and nurtured as shared goods, so that they are able to flourish in the short, medium and long term.
This chapter draws on the main features of a report published by NEF called People, planet, power: towards a new social settlement. It is not a definitive plan for policy makers, but a contribution to wider debates, which highlights issues too often overlooked and calls for a radical change of direction. I begin by describing the goals and four distinctive objectives implied by the goals. I then give examples of practical proposals that follow from the goals and objectives.
three - three The uneven dividend: health and well-being in later life
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- By Anna Coote
- Edited by Paul Cann, Malcolm Dean, University of Oxford
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- Book:
- Unequal Ageing
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 16 July 2022
- Print publication:
- 02 September 2009, pp 53-76
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Summary
• Almost 98 per cent of people with dementia in the UK are over 65; its prevalence doubles with every five-year increase across the age range, but only one-third of those with dementia receive a formal diagnosis.
• The poorest older people are:
– over five times more likely than the richest to have poor general health
– about five times more likely to have difficulty walking
– twice as likely to have diabetes
– more than twice as likely as people under 50 to die.
The asset of health
Health is a precious resource. It is a basic need, shared by all human beings in every country of the world. Our state of health strongly influences our ability to enjoy life, to participate in society and to fulfil our potential, as well as the way we feel about ourselves and – often – how others feel about us.
In later life, more than at any other time except perhaps in the few months after we are born, health is a critical factor that defines us, enables us and constrains us. It determines what growing old means to us. How old we feel and act can depend to a large extent on our mental and physical health.
Defining health
What is health, exactly? It has been defined as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’, and as a ‘fundamental human right’.
The state of our health is measured most often in terms of how long we live and whether we suffer from one or more mental or physical illnesses. Physical, mental and social well-being are closely related and can be mutually reinforcing. So, for example, if we have a positive attitude to life and feel good about ourselves, we are more likely to have enjoyable relationships with other people that are health-enhancing, and less likely to suffer from physical disease. Conversely, being physically unwell can isolate us from others and make us feel anxious and depressed, possibly triggering further illness.
Unequal health
Although everyone needs health, not everyone enjoys it in the same measure. Indeed, there are gross inequalities in the way health is distributed across the human population, both between countries and within countries, and between different groups and neighbourhoods. This chapter is about inequalities in health.
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