Disputes and Debates Over the Welfare State – Theoretical and Empirical Arguments.slides

8/10/2019 Disputes and Debates Over the Welfare State Theoretical and Empirical Arguments.slides

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Theory and Practice of theWelfare State in Europe

Session 07Ryszard Szarfenberg Ph.D. Hab.

Institute of Social Policy

Course web page

www.ips.uw.edu.pl/rszarf/welfare-state/


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For and Against the Welfare State

Based on Paul Wildings Essay and

Other Sources


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Wildings Eight Sets of Arguments

1. the achievement of the welfare state hasbeen considerable

2. the welfare state enjoys widespreadpopularity

3. welfare state policies are an efficient way ofmeeting social needs

4. such policies are the most effective way of

supplementing, complementing andcorrecting the shortcomings of the economicmarket


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Wildings Eight Sets of Arguments

5. welfare state policies are the only satisfactoryway of meeting needs which other traditionalsources of welfare can no longer supply

6. the welfare state is an important mechanism

for securing political stability

7. it provides a basis on which to build agenuine welfare society

8. the welfare state is based on values whichare the necessary basis for fair and civilisedsocial life


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Achievements

To stress the achievement of the welfare state

is not to ignore gaps, shortcomings and

failures. The aim is not to induce

complacency, but rather to paint a more

balanced picture of the situation than isprovided by most assessments, which focus on

what has not been achieved rather than on

actual achievement. What is plain from anykind of objective assessment of the welfare

state is that it has achieved a great deal


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Popularity

People support the welfare state both becausethey believe in the values on which it rests

and which it expresses. The market system

may be logical, coherent and compelling to

ideologues. But the idea that the market will

at times offend our ideas of distributive justice

but that we must nevertheless bear with it for

the sake of a greater good - is simply notacceptable to most people


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Support for redistribution by countries, grouped

into welfare regimes

U. Dallinger, Increasing income inequalities and public

support for redistribution, 2009


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Social Policy Support

J. Edlund, S. Svallfors, Cohort, class and attitudes to

redistribution: Britain and the US, 1996-2006, 2009


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Social Policy Support

J. Edlund, S. Svallfors, Cohort, class and attitudes to

redistribution: Britain and the US, 1996-2006, 2009


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Efficiency

What is being argued here is not that thewelfare state is always efficient.. Theargument being outlined is that publicprovision is not inherently inefficient, that

loose assumptions, for example, aboutautomatic 'efficiency savings' releasing moneyfor growth are an absolute nonsense untilinefficiencies are clearly defined. What isevident is that public services can be, andoften are, highly efficient enterprises.


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Answer to Market Shortcomings

There is just no evidence of a systematicrelationship between the level of publicexpenditure in a particular country andeconomic performance. The argument of

welfare state supporters is that state welfareservices can supplement , complement andcorrect the shortcomings of the market , anddo so without the economic and social coststo growth and social order, which are such ananxiety to welfare state critics.


12/21R. Boyer, The French Welfare, 2000


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Meeting Needs for Care

The state has moved more decisively into thefield of social care as, and because, traditionalinstitutions have shown themselves unable toprovide an acceptable level of care.

Supporters of the welfare state would notargue that this means the state must provideall the services required. But it is hard to see

what other body apart from the state canprovide, regulate, or finance the necessaryservices.


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Political Stability

The balance of evidence and argument seemsto suggest that capitalist democracy is afundamentally unstable compromise, that itsinstability becomes more obvious in recession,

but that it is supported and stabilised ratherthan destabilised by welfare state policies.Threatening problems - for exampleunemployment - are eased, the authority andstanding of government are legitimised, amiddle way is opened up.


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Potential to Solve Social Problems

What is very striking is how all the main socialservices have evolved since 1948 - indirections which were never anticipated atthat time. This ability to evolve and develop in

response to change in society, newunderstanding of problems and new insightsinto how problems can be resolved, is one ofthe great strengths of social policies - so longas they are given the freedom and the fundingrequired for creative responses.


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Civilised and Stable Life it is based on those values most likely to provide a

firm and satisfactory base for civilised and stablelife in society - co-operation and the sharing ofburdens, reduction of inequalities, justice andfairness, altruism, humanitarianism and a concern

for social need, fellowship and rights ofcitizenship The welfare state also expresses man'screativity, his refusal to take the outcomes ofsupposed economic laws for granted when they

affront his ideas of distributive justice It appealsto man's imaginative and social nature and to hisbelief in the possibility of progress.


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Four Special Arguments against the

Welfare State

welfare state policies are no more than apalliative, are primarily concerned with socialcontrol, and should be regarded as an

instrument for legitimating and sustaining,rather than transforming, capitalism

the welfare state sustained patriarchy

the welfare state is damaging for freedom the welfare state has damaging social effects

(its divisive and disruptive results on society)


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Welfare State and Freedom

The basis of freedom in society is a low level ofgovernment intervention in economic and social life

welfare state services usually offer no choice andprovide further threats to freedom by, in effect,imposing a maximum standard on what is availableto consumers

the power of professionals and bureaucrats the

welfare state services 'put some people in a positionto decide what is good for other people

the inevitable conflict between equality and freedom


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R. E. Goodin, Reasons

for Welfare, 1988, p.

331


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Theory of Demoralisation of Society

Weakening ties

Consumptionism

Disintegrationof

marriagesand families

fraud, idleness,

irresponsibility

entrepreneurship,

thrift, self-restraint

Welfare state

rewards

punishes

Individualism

Reduced innovation in

economy

Demoralized

underclass in urbanghettos

Proposals of the new

social policies which

rewards proper behaviour

and punishes wrong one

It is American conservatives way of critique of US

social assistance style in 1980.

Disputes and Debates Over the Welfare State – Theoretical and Empirical Arguments.slides

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