The expansion of cash benefits to low-paid workers has been one of the most significant developments in recent UK public policy. Since 1979, transfer payments to working-age households have trebled in real terms, helping to offset increases in wage inequality. Adopting a discursive institutionalist approach, this article argues that the growth of transfer payments partly reflects the influence of what John Kay has called ‘Redistributive Market Liberalism’ – the belief that poverty and inequality are best alleviated through income transfers outside the market. Although its roots can be traced back to the 1940s, Redistributive Market Liberalism came to the fore after 1979 in the context of a reaction against trade union power and renewed confidence in neoclassical microeconomics, and reached its apogee in New Labour’s child poverty strategy. The 2008 financial crisis, however, appears to have disrupted the ascendancy of this free-market philosophy and prompted a return to more interventionist forms of distributional politics.
AckersP (2016) Symposium: The Oxford School of Industrial Relations: Fifty Years after the 1965–1968 Donovan Commission. Historical Studies in Industrial Relations37: 201–207.
2.
AndersonES (1999) What Is the Point of Equality?Ethics109 (2): 287–337.
3.
AshdownP (2000) The Ashdown Diaries: 1988–1997, vol. 1. London: Allen Lane.
AtkinsonABStiglitzJE (1980) Lectures on Public Economics. Maidenhead, Berks: McGraw-Hill.
6.
BaleT (1999) Sacred Cows and Common Sense: The Symbolic Statecraft and Political Culture of the British Labour Party. Aldershot: Ashgate.
7.
BeattyCFothergillS (2017) The Impact on Welfare and Public Finances of Job Loss in Industrial Britain. Regional Studies, Regional Science4 (1): 161–180.
8.
BelfieldCCribbJHoodAet al. (2016) Living Standards, Poverty and Inequality in the UK: 2016. London: Institute for Fiscal Studies.
9.
BlackburnS (2007) A Fair Day’s Wage for a Fair Day’s Work? Sweated Labour and the Origins of Minimum Wage Legislation in Britain. Aldershot: Ashgate.
10.
BlockFSomersM (2003) In the Shadow of Speenhamland: Social Policy and the Old Poor Law. Politics & Society31 (2): 283–323.
11.
BlythM (2003) Structures Do Not Come with an Instruction Sheet: Interests, Ideas, and Progress in Political Science. Perspectives on Politics1 (4): 695–706.
12.
BrittanS (1963) How to Reform the Welfare State. The Observer, 10November, p.6.
13.
Central Policy Review Staff (1982) Report on Unemployment. The National Archives: Public Record Office, CAB 184/610, September.
14.
CleggD (2015) The Demise of Tax Credits. Political Quarterly86 (4): 493–499.
15.
Confederation of British Industry (1998) The Working Family Tax Credit. CBI Evidence to the House of Commons Social Security Committee Tax and Benefits Enquiry. Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, MSS.200/C/2008/Box 84.
16.
Confederation of British Industry (2000) Brief for Digby Jones on Working Families Tax Credit. Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, MSS.200/C/2008/Box 70, 3May.
17.
CorlettAClarkeSD’ArcyCet al. (2018) The Living Standards Audit 2018. London: Resolution Foundation.
18.
DauntonM (2002) Just Taxes: The Politics of Taxation in Britain, 1914–1979. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
DeakinNParryR (2000) The Treasury and Social Policy: The Contest for Control of Welfare Strategy. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
21.
Department of Employment and Productivity (1969) A National Minimum Wage: Report of an Inter-departmental Working Party. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
22.
Department of Social Security Employers’ Panel (1995) Minutes of the Meeting of the DSS Employers’ Panel. Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, MSS.200/C/2008/Box 85 DSS/NIC/Social Security/Employers’ Group, 22June.
23.
DickensR (2011) Child Poverty in Britain: Past Lessons and Future Prospects. National Institute Economic Review218: R7–R19.
24.
DilnotAWKayJAMorrisCN (1984) The Reform of Social Security. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
25.
EvansGTilleyJ (2017) The New Politics of Class: The Political Exclusion of the British Working Class. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
26.
FarrellHQuigginJ (2017) Consensus, Dissensus, and Economic Ideas: Economic Crisis and the Rise and Fall of Keynesianism. International Studies Quarterly61 (2): 269–283.
27.
Federation of British Industries (1951) Minutes of Taxation Panel Meeting. Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, MSS.200/F/1/1/135/112–5, 7December.
28.
FigartDMMutariE (1999) Global Feminization and Flexible Labour Markets: Gendered Discourse in the Opposition to Pay Equity Reform. In: GregoryJSalesRHegewischA (eds) Women, Work and Inequality. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.44–57.
29.
FigartDMMutariEPowerM (2002) Living Wages, Equal Wages: Gender and Labor Market Policies in the United States. London: Routledge, pp.44–57.
30.
FleetwoodS (2007) Why Work-Life Balance Now?The International Journal of Human Resource Management18 (3): 387–400.
31.
FourcadeM (2009) Economists and Societies: Discipline and Profession in the United States, Britain, and France, 1890s to 1990s. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
32.
FriedmanM (1962) Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
33.
GoldmanP (1958) Preface. In: Conservative Political Centre (ed.) The Future of the Welfare State. London: Conservative Political Centre, pp.7–10.
34.
GriggsJHammondAWalkerR (2014) Activation for All: Welfare Reform in the United Kingdom, 1995–2009. In: LodemelIMoreiraA (eds) Activation or Workfare? Governance and the Neo-liberal Convergence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.73–100.
35.
GroverC (2016) Social Security and Wage Poverty: Historical and Policy Aspects of Supplementing Wages in Britain and Beyond. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
36.
HaasPM (1992) Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination. International Organization46 (1): 1–35.
37.
HackerJ (2011) The Institutional Foundations of Middle-Class Democracy. In: Policy Network (ed.) Priorities for a New Political Economy: Memo to the Left. London: Policy Network, pp.33–37.
38.
HackerJPiersonP (2010) Winner-Take-All Politics: Public Policy, Political Organization, and the Precipitous Rise of Top Incomes in the United States. Politics & Society38 (2): 152–204.
39.
HamptonJ (2016) Disability and the Welfare State in Britain: Changes in Perception and Policy 1948–79. London: Policy Press.
40.
HindmoorA (2018) What’s Left Now?Oxford: Oxford University Press.
41.
HopkinJAlexander ShawK (2016) Organized Combat or Structural Advantage? The Politics of Inequality and the Winner-Take-All Economy in the United Kingdom. Politics & Society44 (3): 345–371.
42.
JacksonB (in press) Richard Titmuss Versus the IEA: The Transition from Idealism to Neo-liberalism in British Social Policy. In: GoldmanLJonesS (eds) Welfare and Social Policy in British Historical Perspective, 1850-2010. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
43.
JensonJ (2012) A New Politics for the Social Investment Perspective: Objectives, Instruments, and Areas of Intervention in Welfare Regimes. In: BonoliGNataliD (eds) The Politics of the New Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.21–44.
44.
JessopB (2003) From Thatcherism to New Labour: Neo-liberalism, Workfarism, and Labour Market Regulation. In: OverbeekH (ed.) The Political Economy of European Employment: European Integration and the Transnationalization of the (Un)employment Question. London: Routledge, pp.137–153.
45.
JohnPBertelliAJenningsWet al. (2013) Policy Agendas in British Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
46.
JonesJ (1972) Wages and Social Security. New Statesman, 7January, p.7.
47.
JordanB (1973) Paupers: The Making of the New Claiming Class. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
48.
KaletskyA (1996) Why the Treasury must Now be Brought to Heel. The Times, 18July, p.27.
49.
KayJ (1996) Staking a Moral Claim. New Statesman, 11October, pp.18–20.
MeadeJE (1948) Planning and the Price Mechanism: The Liberal-Socialist Solution. London: George Allen & Unwin.
61.
MiddlemasK (1986–1991) Power, Competition and the State, 3 vols. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
62.
MillwardG (2014) Invalid Definitions, Invalid Responses: Disability and the Welfare State, 1965–1995. PhD thesis, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
63.
MooreC (2015) Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography: Everything She Wants, vol. 2. London: Allen Lane.
64.
MylesJPiersonP (1997) Friedman’s Revenge: The Reform of ‘Liberal’ Welfare States in Canada and the United States. Politics & Society25 (4): 443–472.
65.
O’ConnorA (2001) Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Oude NijhuisD (2016) Low Pay, Wage Relativities, and Labour’s First Attempt to Introduce a Statutory National Minimum Wage in the United Kingdom. Journal of Policy History28 (1): 81–104.
70.
PeacockAT (1957) Welfare in a Liberal State. In: WatsonG (ed.) The Unservile State: Essays in Liberty and Welfare. London: George Allen & Unwin, pp.113–130.
71.
PedenG (2017) Neoliberal Economists and the British Welfare State, 1942–1975. Journal of the History of Economic Thought39 (4): 413–427.
72.
PedersenS (1993) Family, Dependence, and the Origins of the Welfare State: Britain and France, 1914-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
73.
PigouAC (1932) The Economics of Welfare, 4th edn. London: Macmillan.
74.
PowellJE (1970) Speech in the House of Commons, 10November. HC Debates806: 260–265.
75.
RawlsJ (1971) A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
76.
RhodesM (2000) Desperately Seeking a Solution: Social Democracy, Thatcherism and the ‘Third Way’ in British Welfare. In: FerreraMRhodesM (eds) Recasting European Welfare States. London: Frank Cass, pp.161–186.
77.
RickettsMShoesmithE (1990) British Economic Opinion: A Survey of a Thousand Economists. London: Institute of Economic Affairs.
78.
SandmoA (2017) Tony Atkinson 1944–2017: A Lifetime Commitment to the Study of Inequality. European Journal of the History of Economic Thought24 (3): 612–623.
79.
SchmidtV (2010) Taking Ideas and Discourse Seriously: Explaining Change through Discursive Institutionalism as the Fourth ‘New Institutionalism’. European Political Science Review2 (1): 1–25.
80.
SeldonA (1963) Choice in Welfare. London: Institute of Economic Affairs.
81.
SlomanP (2016a) ‘The Pragmatist’s Solution to Poverty’: The Heath Government’s Tax Credit Scheme and the Politics of Poverty in the 1970s. Twentieth Century British History27 (2): 220–241.
82.
SlomanP (2016b) Beveridge’s Rival: Juliet Rhys-Williams and the Campaign for Basic Income, 1942–1955. Contemporary British History30 (2): 203–223.
83.
Social Democratic Party (1983) Attacking Poverty. London: Social Democratic Party.
84.
SteenslandB (2008) The Failed Welfare Revolution: America’s Struggle Over Guaranteed Income Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
85.
ThanePDavidsonR (2016) The Child Poverty Action Group in the 1990s and 2000s: Witness Seminar. London: Institute of Contemporary British History.
86.
ThatcherM (1984) Marginal Annotations on Letter from Willetts D to Prime Minister, ‘Benefits for Children and Young People’. The National Archives: Public Record Office, PREM 19/1638, 28December.
87.
ThompsonN (2006) Political Economy and the Labour Party: The Economics of Democratic Socialism, 1884-2005, 2nd edn.London: Routledge.
88.
TomlinsonJ (2016) De-industrialization Not Decline: A New Meta-Narrative for Post-War British History. Twentieth Century British History27 (1): 76–99.
89.
Veit-WilsonJ (2006) Poverty. In: FitzpatrickTet al. (eds), International Encyclopedia of Social Policy, vol. I. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.1036–1042.
90.
WeirM (1989) Ideas and Politics: The Acceptance of Keynesianism in Britain and the United States. In: HallPA (ed.) The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism across Nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp.53–86.
91.
WhiteS (2014) Democratic Equality as a Work-in-Progress. In: MandleJReddyDA (eds) A Companion to Rawls. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, pp.185–199.
92.
WilesP (1957) Property and Equality. In: WatsonG (ed.) The Unservile State: Essays in Liberty and Welfare. London: George Allen & Unwin, pp.88–109.
93.
WillsJLinnekerB (2014) In-work Poverty and the Living Wage in the United Kingdom: A Geographical Perspective. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers39 (2): 182–194.
94.
YoungSG (1991) Oral Answer in the House of Commons, 30January. HC Debates184: 940.
