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Abstract

This article reports the results of a recent survey into the attitudes of a small sample of working-class voters in Plymouth. The survey in general reinforces the conclusions of previous studies regarding the perceptions of who benefits from state welfare, which are the preferred and less preferred services, the existence of a bedrock of defence of state welfare coexisting with reported negative experiences of some aspects of state welfare. The new contribution of this pilot survey is to test the potential receptivity of voters to a range of alternative welfare strategies in the light of the experience of Thatcherism ranging from free market, through welfare pluralism, the status quo, and welfare corporation, to radical redistribu don and the alternative social strategy. The potential if minority support for radical redistribution and the alternative social strategy on the one hand and welfare pluralism on the other is reported. The free-market and welfare-corporatist strategies are not preferred.

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Working-class opinion and welfare strategies: beyond the state and the market

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