The making of a claiming class: the neglect of agency in analyses of the welfare state

Abstract

This paper criticises the emerging marxist school within social administra tion for leaning too heavily upon structuralism and ignoring the activity of the working class in the development of the welfare state. It is argued that we need to focus upon the actual making of welfare in a socio-historical context and the considerabte impact that a divided working class has had on thisprocm. As an example the nineteenth century development of the Poor Law and friendly societies are examined in relation to the labour aristocracy and the undeserving poor. The paper argues that the neglect of agency and of intra-class divisions may blaker marxism to important contemporary developmentsin the social division for welfare.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anderson, P. (1964), 'Origins of the present crisis', New Left Review, no 23, Jan-Feb.

Bovenkerk, F. (1984), 'The rehabilitation of the rabble: how and why Marx and Engels wrongly depicted the lumpen-proletariat as a reactionary force' , in The Netherlands Journal ofsociology, Vol.20, no.1, pp.13-42.

Braverman, H. (1974), 'Labour and monopoly capital' Monthly Review Press, New York.

Burgess, K. (1980), The challenge of labour: shaping British society 1850-1930, Croom Helm, London.

Crossick, G. (1978), An artisan élite in Victorian society, Croom Helm, London.

Forrest, R. and Murie, A. (1983), 'Residualisation and council housing: aspects of the changing social relations of housing tenure', Journal of Social Policy, VoI.l2, Pt.4, October.

Foster, J. (1977), Class struggle and the industrial revolution, Methuen, London.

Fraser, D. (1973), The evolution of the British welfare state, Macmillan, London.

Gosden, P.H.J.H. (1973), Self help: voluntary associations in the 19th century, Batsford, London.

10.

Gough, I. ( 1979), The political economy of the welfare state, Macmillan, London and Basingstoke .

11.

Jessop, B. (1979), 'Corporatism, parliamentarism and social democracy' , in Schmitter P.C. and Lehmbruch G. (eds.), Trends toward corporatist intermediation, Sage, London.

12.

Jones, C. (1984), State social work and the working class, Macmillan, London and Basingstoke .

13.

Jones, G.S. (1984), Outcast London: astudy in the relationship between classes in Victorian society, Penguin, Harmondsworth.

14.

Leeson, R.A. (1980), Travelling brothers, Granada , St Albans.

15.

Lukes, S. (1974), Power: a radical view, Macmillan , London and Basingstoke.

16.

Macnicol, J. 'Outside state welfare: the concept of an underclass', unpublished paper for the SSRC/Social History Society Conference on The Roots of Welfare, Lancaster University, December 1983.

17.

Mann, K. (1984), 'Incorporation, exclusion, underclasses and the unemployed', in Harrison M.L. (ed.), (1984), Corporatism and the welfare state, Gower, Aldershot.

18.

Moorhouse, H.F. (1978), 'Marxist theories of the labour aristocracy', Social History Vol.3, No. 1, January.

19.

O'Connor, J. (1973), The fiscal crisis of the state, St Martins Press, New York.

20.

Offe, C. (1982), 'Some contradictions of the modern welfare state' , Critical Social Policy, Vol. 12, no.2, Autumn.

21.

Sinfield, A. (1978), 'Analyses in the social division of welfare', Journal aJSocial Policy, Vol.7, Pt.2, April.

22.

Taylor-Gooby, P. (1981), 'The empiricist tradition in social administration' , Critical Social Policy, Vol. 1, no.2, pp.6-21.

23.

Taylor-Gooby, P. (1985), Public opinion, ideology and state welfare, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.

24.

Thompson, E.P. (1978), 'Peculiarities of the English', in The poverty of theory and other essays, Merlin Press, London.

25.

Thompson, E.P. (1968), The making of the English working class, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth.

26.

Treble, J.H. (1968), The place of Irish Catholics in the social life of the North of England 1829-51, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Leeds University.