An Agenda for Welfare Pluralism in Housing

Abstract

AbstractDuring the 1980s the concepts of “welfare pluralism” and a “mixed economy of welfare” were developed by academics writing from the perspective of the social democratic centre of British politics as a response to the criticisms of state welfare put forward by the New Right and the New Left in the 1970s. Whereas the New Right gave little critical attention to such concepts regarding them as useful supports to an anti‐state stance the New Left claims that they were an attempt to allow the Fabian‐style managers of the old consensus to have some role in the restructuring of welfare to be carried out by the political wing of the New Right. It is argued that the claim of the New Left has limited validity but a more certain case can be made for the contention that the lack of a detailed specification of a social and economic context for welfare pluralism has given credibility to the accusation that welfare pluralism has provided a smokescreen for the introduction of market principles into welfare. Housing policy is here utilized to illustrate the argument and the ingredients of a socio‐economic context for welfare pluralism in housing policy are set out in the hope that similar frameworks will be provided for other domains of welfare.