This paper takes to task two theses which are often canvassed on the left; firstly that the welfare state is indefensible and secondly that it is irrever sible and cannot be undone. It is argued that socialists and fentinists must defend the principle of collective provision embodied in the welfare state sible and cannot be undone. It is argued that socialists and fentinists must defend the principale of collective provision embodied in the welfare state attacked as overoptimistic and akistorical. It is suggested that the social democratic welfare state may be feasibly formed into a warfare, welfare state underpinning permanent mass unemployment and poverty.
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References
1.
Goran Therborn , 'The Prospects of Labour and the Transformation of Advanced Capitalism', New Left Review, 145, May/June 1984, pp.29, 33; Claus Offe, Contradictions of the Welfare State (ed. John Keane), MIT Press , 1984, pp.152-3; Peter Taylor-Gooby, Public Opinion, Public Opinion, Ideology and State Welfare, ( Routledge, 1985), p.82.
2.
Stuart Hall , 'The Great Moving Right Show', Marxism Today, Jan. 1979; Paul Corrigan, 'Popular Consciousness and Social Democracy', Marxism Today, Dec. 1979; Phil Lee , 'Welfare State: The Second Front Opens', Marxism Today, May 1983.
3.
Therborn and Offe, op. cit.
4.
The relevant literature is fairly extensive although the conviction with which the thesis is held has varied a good deal. Its most eloquent and influential exponent is surely Stuart Hall. See Hall, op. cit. and his many subsequent articles in Marxism Today. See also Corrigan, and Lee, op. cit. For a more cautious appraisal of the relation between the new right and the welfare state see Peter Taylor-Gooby, 'The New Right and Social Policy', Critical Social Policy, 1(1) Summer 1981 and Ian Gough, 'Thatcherism and the Welfare State', Marxism Today , July 1980 and 'The Crisis of the British Welfare State' , International Journal of Health Services13(3), 1983.
5.
Peter Riddell, The Thatcher Government (Martin Robertson, 1983), p.138.
6.
R. Bacon and W. Eltis, Britain's Economic Problems: Too Few Producers. ( Macmillan , 1976).
7.
Riddell, op. cit. pp.234-5; Shelly Pinto-Duschinsky, 'Manifestoes, Speeches, and the Doctrine of the Mandate' in Howard R. Penniman (ed.) Britain at the Polls, 1979 (American Enterprise Institute, 1981); D. Butler and D. Kavannagh, The British General Election of 1983 (Macmillan, 1984), pp.292-3.
8.
Riddell and Pinto-Duschinsky, op. cit. Bo Sarlvik and Ivor Crewe, Decade of Dealignment: The Conservative Victory in 1979 and Electoral Trends in the 1970s (Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 17-8 and Ch.9 passim.
9.
Taylor-Gooby (1985), op. cit. pp.29-32; Peter Golding and Sue Middleton, Images of Welfare ( Martin Robertson, 1982) Ch.6.
In a survey of attitudes, Taylor-Gooby (1985) found a strong support for the principle of state welfarism but a great deal of concern about actual practices. See op. cit. pp.36-7.
12.
ibid. ch.2 especially.
13.
ibid. Riddell, op. cit. pp.239-40; Ramesh Mishra, The Welfare State in Crisis ( Wheatsheaf, 1984), p.84.
14.
Riddell, op. cit. pp.40, 239-40; Taylor-Gooby (1985), loc. cit. ibid; Riddell, op. cit. pp.239-40; Ramesh Mishra, The Welfare State in Crisis ( Wtteaisheaf, 1984), p.84.
15.
Doreen Massey et a]. 'And Now for the Good News' in James Curran (ed.), The Future of the Left (Polity Press and New Socialist , 1984), pp.216-7.
16.
Ian Gough, The Political Economy of the Welfare State (Macmillan1979), pp. 12, 14.
17.
I am somewhat dubious about the prospects of deprofessionalisation and debureaucratisation and the abolision of sexist practices within the confines of welfare capitalism such as for example seems to be envisaged by sections of the left. See, for example, Alan Walker, 'Labour's Social Plans: The Limits of Welfare Statism', Critical Social Policy, 8, Autumn, 1983. However some measure of democratisation of the services and the growth of socialist forms of social policy on the margins of the welfare state remains possible. On the nature of socialist social policy see Bob Deacon's important study Social Policy and Socialism (Pluto, 1982).
18.
A.J. Heidenheimer et al. Comparative Public Policy (Macmillan, 1976), pp.71-3; R. Mishra, Society and Social Policy ( Macmillan, 1981), pp.103-4.
19.
loc. cit.
20.
D. Ashford, Policy and Politics in France (Temple University Press , 1982), p.2; G. Drover and P. Kerans'Worker Organised Welfare Schemes' in M.D. Kimberley (ed.) Beyond National Boundaries ( Canadian Association of Schools of Social Work, 1984).
21.
This would seem to be the case in respect of the organisation of income maintenance, health care and housing.
Elizabeth Wilson , Women and the Welfare State ( Tavistock, 1977) can be seen as an example of the former and Mary McTosh, 'Feminism and Social Policy', Critical Social Policy 1(1) Summer, 1981, of the latter.
24.
See for example M. Barrett and M. McIntosh, The Anti-Social Family ( Verso, 1982), ch.IV.
25.
Johanna Brenner and Maria Ramas, 'Rethinking Women's Oppression'New Left Review, 144, March/ April, 1984.
26.
McIntosh ( 1981), op. cit. pp.34-5.
27.
Offe, op. cit (Note 1), pp.34-5.
28.
Therborn, op. cit. (Note 1), pp.29, 33. What follows is based almost entirely on Therborn's NLR article cited above. Very few of his publications in this field are as yet available in English and I may have oversimplified his position somewhat. See also notes 36 and 55 below.
ibid. p.27. Therborn's data on public expenditure do not take into account the effect of such factors as the steep rise in the cost of unemployment benefits and the rise in military expenditure in recent years in both Britain and the United States. The influence of 'automatic' factors, eg rise in the proportion of the elderly population, should also be kept in mind when using such gross expenditure data.
37.
ibid. p.25.
38.
ibid.
39.
ibid. p.33.
40.
Offe, op. cit. p.153.
41.
ibid. pp.296-9.
42.
Therborn, op. cit. pp.25, 29, 37.
43.
Ernest Mandel , Marxist Economic Theory ( Merlin Press, 1968), pp.536-9; Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (Penguin Books, 1968), pp.155-7; James O'Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State (St. Martin's Press, 1973), pp.99, 150-67, 235.
44.
Between 1978/79 and 1984/85 total public expenditure in Britain was scheduled to grow by 3% and defence expenditure by 30% or ten times the rate of growth of public expenditure! See Phil Lee et al. 'Banishing Dark Divisive Clouds: Welfare and Conservative Government 1979-1983', Critical Social
45.
Policy, 8, Autumn, 1983, p.7. In the United States military spending was projected to rise by 7% annually during i981-6. See Robert Lekachman, Greed is Not Enough: Reagonomics (Pantheon,1982), pp.149-51. 45 See however Vicente Navarro, 'The Crisis of the International Capitalist Order and Its Implications for the Welfare State' Critical Social Policy, 2(1), Summer, 1982, p.51; A.G. Frank, Crisis: In the World Economy (Heinemann, 1980), pp.139-42.
46.
On the United States see N. Glazer, 'The Social Policy of the Reagan Administration: A Review', The Public Interest, 75, Spring 1984, p.95 and R. Lekachman, 'Reagan's Joy and Misery Index', New Society, 3 May 1984. On Britain see Lee et al. op. cit. pp. 10-2,14-6 and D. Bull and P. Wilding (eds.) Thatcherism and the Poor (Child Poverty Action Group, 1983), esp, chs.3, 13.
47.
See eg Lekachman (1984), op. cit. Mike Davis, 'Reagonomics: Magical Mystery Tour', New Left Review, 149, Jan/Feb. 1985, pp.45-7.
48.
M. Davis, 'The Political Economy of Late-Imperial America', New Left Review, 143, Jan/Feb. 1984. On Britain see Bob Jessop et al. 'Authoritarian Populism, Two Nations and Thatcherism', New Left Review, 147, Sept./Oct. 1984.
49.
See eg L.N. Johansen and J.E. Kolberg, 'Welfare State Regression in Scandinavia ?' in S.N. Eisenstadt and O. Ahimeir (eds.) The Welfare State and Its Aftermath (Croom Helm, 1985).
50.
This is better recognised in British writings on the left. Even so full employment tends not to be seen as a part of 'social policy' and therefore often gets excluded from or marginalised in discussions of the welfare state. See eg I. Gough (1980) (1983), op. cit. (Note 4); A. Walker (1983), op. cit. (Note 17).
51.
Quite recently Therborn has published an important comparative analysis of unemployment, Why Some Peoples are More Unemployed Than Others (Verso, 1985). This work was not available to me at the time of writing.
52.
See A. Walker et al. 'Conservative Economic Policy: The Social Consequences' in Bull and Wilding (eds.), op. cit. (Note 46), pp.16-7, 20-1; Lee et al. op. cit. (Note 44), pp.21, 11-2.
53.
This is more clearly recognised by the left in Britain and the United States. See eg Lee et al. op. cit. pp. 11-2 and Mike Davis, 'The AFL-CIO's Second Century', New Left Review, 136, Nov./Dec. 1982, pp.48-51.
54.
See however Therborn's excellent 'Britain Left Out' in James Curran (ed.) The Future of the Left (Polity Press, 1984), esp. pp.135-6.
