What's so new about social investment? Evidence from the history of the Danish welfare state

Abstract

Social Investment is heralded as a new social policy logic that views present social expenditure in light of future benefits for a greater good. Seeking to qualify the discussion of the historical status and development of Social Investment logic(s), this article asks the question: Is the social investment logic new? Taking the critique of Social Investment as utilitarian as a starting point, we trace and analyse historical logics in the formative decades of the Danish welfare state ca. 1880–1940 by investigating four important and controversial social policies: (1) The role of economics in the 1891 old age pension reform, (2) turn of the century uses of Christian discipline, (3) the landmark 1933 social reform, and (4) the eugenic program of the 1920s and 1930s. We apply problem analysis to key texts of protagonists of the Danish moral elites in the period: Harald Westergaard and Karl Kristian Steincke. Our results show the historical presence of utilitarian concerns similar to contemporary Social Investment logics tied to heterogeneous and conflicting cultural, social, humanist, religious, and biological concerns. Broadly understood, the Social Investment logic is not novel. However, analyses of utilitarian logics infiltrating welfare must be qualified by showing the intersections among heterogeneous concerns.