Problems of the Welfare State

Abstract

At the very outset, the welfare state must be put in historical perspective. European feudalism, Roman imperialism, and the Greek city—none of them developed a welfare state. Instead, they developed charitable orders and extended families. The welfare state is a very recent development; its origins go back not much more than a century or two. It is the nation state’s response to the insecurities of industrial capitalism. Its varied programs are attempts to provide security and sufficiency, for all, in the wake of the insecurity and insufficiency, for many, that accompanied capitalism and the industrial revolution. The welfare state is also a concerted attempt to protect the weak and to make whole the dispossessed. Being an activity conducted by the state rather than the church or the family, it is far more effective and powerful than traditional charity. It is more effective, because it draws on the vast financial resources of the nation state. It is more powerful because it relies on the force of law. It is also of broader scope than traditional charity, stretching far beyond the local relations of the neighborhood and village and far beyond the personal relations of the congregation and parish to the political relations of the nation. The welfare state is not of the white neighborhood, the fundamentalist church, nor the patriarchical family, but of the democratic nation.