The social question: reconciling social and economic imperatives in policy

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the enduring relevance of key economic ideas. It considers how the pressing social and economic questions of the day (the social questions, concerning rights and representation, diversity and difference) have been cast and recast, and the responses to these questions from the discipline of economics. In its original form, the ‘social question’ referred to the welfare of workers in the Second Industrial Revolution. The chapter begins with the fundamental questions of social democracy and equity. It seeks to answer the questions like: How would the rights of labour be established against the power being concentrated in the hands of capital? Would working-class people have the right to vote? Should workers have bargaining power through unions? The chapter then assesses the tendency of capitalist economies to cycle through periods of boom and bust. The chapter explores how traditional Keynesian ideas once again bear relevance in the continued attempt to balance our economic and social life, with capitalism again plunged into another crisis from the COVID-19 pandemic.