Types of Welfare Capitalism

Catherine Jones

Types of Welfare Capitalism

WESTERN SOCIAL POLICY DEVELOPMENT IS NO LONGER A subject of interest only to welfare specialists and their students.’ Economic ill-fortune has had at least this one, positive effect. More - and more variegated - questions are being asked about relationships between public/social policy practice2 and economic performance, both within and between Western countries. However, the very fact that social scientists are now tackling this subject in broader fashion and from a variet disciplinary and ideological erspectives, has served to high r ight Of

inconsistencies in the use o P such supposedly standard terms as

welfare state in crisis’ or words to this ef P ect, have implied or

‘social policy’, ‘social spending’ and ‘welfare state’. Recent research projects, conferences, ublications on ‘the

assumed that they are dealing with a standard phenomenon currently - albeit to varying degrees - in ‘crisis’. This is despite the fact that there is already ample evidence in the literature to indicate that the term ‘welfare state’ is ambiguous, signifying different things to different audiences - from the banal assump- tion that every developed society equipped with forms of statutory social provision is to be accounted a welfare state, through Western Marxist notions that only liberal-democratic cupitdist states so qualify, down to much more rigorous and exclusive concepts of the welfare state as connoting the pursuit

1 Note that, while [British] social administration has long been hailed as ‘the magpie subject’, its practitioners adhered to a highly insular set of ideas and assump- tions about the nature, purpose and scope of ‘social policy’.

2 Deciding on which aspects of public policy ought properly to be termed ‘social’ - and on whether the field of social policy was confined to the realm of the public and formal, as opposed to the private/informal or subsidized/semi-formal etc - has been of consummate interest to some social administration professionals but not, seemingly, t o other academics.

TYPES O F WELFARE CAPITALISM 329

of a particular form of ‘caring/sharing’ socio-political ideaL3 Thus to ask whether, or to what extent, ‘the welfare state’ is now everywhere in crisis is to make a question-begging start.

Associated with this area of confusion are differences, no less significant, in respect of the term ‘social policy’ - the hallmark, so it is conventionally assumed, of the modern ‘welfare state’. Even this term is not everywhere in use to connote a class or category of public activity. Where it is in use (or is imposed by an outside researcher) the prefix ‘social’ may not always connote the same sort of social end in view. Furthermore, the range of activities bracketed together by, for instance, OECD, as constituting ‘social spending’ in various countries may fall under comparable subject headings yet relate to fundamentally different types of intervention strategy. Thus when rival experts or, for that matter, rival contemporary national governments and their voters, appear to disagree over how far social policy/ social spending constitutes a ‘burden’ on the economy as opposed to being a possible key to economic recovery and growth, it is possible - indeed probable - that the parties concerned hold differing notions as to what such ‘social policy’ comprehends or should comprehend and as to what it is supposed to be in aid of.

This article will argue that, by looking again at ideas and evidence already accumulated, one may arrive at a middle order of generalization; one moreover which distinguishes between proportionate level of social spending as one state characteristic, and social policy orientation, as another. Failure to distinguish systematically between these two features hitherto, has resulted in needless confusion in the Iiterature.

‘UNI-DIMENSIONAL’ WELFARE STATE COMPARISON

Generations of post-Second world War social policy commentators in Britain and America have been concerned to explore and to account for differences in the apparent balance struck between welfare/redistributive versus capitalistlmarket values among Western societies. Richard Titmuss, for instance,

3e.g. Beveridge’s gnomic assertion that it is not possible to construct a welfare state except on the basis of a ‘welfare society’.

330 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION

TABLE 1 Sock2 Expenditure as a percentage of GNP

Country 1981*

USA W. Germany France UK Sweden Switzerland

21.0 31.5 23.8** 24.9 33.5 14.9

*Or latest available year. **Excluding education expenditure. Source: OECD Obseruer, No. 126, January 1984.

attempted to interpret the manner in which blood was donated (voluntarily or for a fee) as in part a test of how far the ‘social’ as opposed to the ‘market’ ethic stretched in any given society - though this led him to some very strange result^.^ Most commentators have been more prosaic in their choice of yardsticks.

The most obvious and popular stratagem adopted in response to this question has been to compare levels of social spending (itself assumed or implied to be a measure of welfare commitment) as a proportion of GNP andfor as a proportion of total

ublic expenditure. League tables are thereby drawn up, in the &ht of which the US is liable to be portrayed as a ‘reluctant’ or ‘residual’ welfare state vis-&vis European norms, since its proportionate level of social spending is so much less. Britain, by the same token, features as the arsimonious welfare state in comparison with its continentaf neighbours, Switzerland excepted. (See Table 1).

However such exercises, combining as they do evidence on spending with observation as to policy intent, could only even seem to work in relation to a highly selective list of sample (i.e. ‘ideal type’) states. Hence the penchant, among US commentators in particular, for comparing their own country

4 By this yardstick, for instance, Sweden emerges as fully market-orientated, in contrast to France, Germany, the USA and the USSR. See R. Titmuss, The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy, London, M e n & Unwin, 1970.

TYPES OF WELFARE CAPITALISM 331

(relatively low on social spending; low on ‘welfare-mindedness’) with high-spending, ostensibly pro-welfare S ~ e d e n . ~

Thus, when Furniss and Tilton set out to compare high social-spending Sweden with middle-spending UK and low- spending USA, they sought to account for this pattern by suggesting that there were evident differences - rather than mere degrees - of social philosophy and practice between them. Hence, by their token, the US is a ‘positive state’ wherein any social spending is supposed to be geared to reinforce the market system - by providing social insurance tied to work record, on the one hand, and by providing very much residual, st matized

working or never-having-worked poor,6 on the other. Sweden, in contrast, stands in their eyes as a ‘social equality state’ wherein redistribution according to need is the order of the day and much reater equality of outcome is at least the declared

The problem, for Furniss and Tilton, comes when they try to categorize UK performance - which strikes them as midway between the US and Sweden in more than geographical respects. Thus the middle-spending UK is portrayed, rather lamely and unconvincingly, as a ‘social security state’: one committed to providing minimum (but only minimum) protection for all, regardless of work record, occupational status or presumed psychological desert. This may square well enough with Beveridge’s (1942) intentions in respect of tackling want, but it hardly summarizes the entirety of 1940s (let alone 1950s-70s) British social policy intent.

So what might Furniss and Tdton have done if asked to ty e-

stems from the fact that, as in so many other cases, proportionate levels of social spending have been taken as constituting first indicators of degrees of ‘welfare’ commitment. Qualitative

forms of help for many of the non-working, insu P ficiently

long-term o % jective.

cast French and West German social policy? Their difficu P ty

5 e.g. A. Rosenthal, The Social Programs of Sweden: A Search for Security in Q

Free Society, University of Minnesota Press, 1967; N. Furniss and T . Tilton, The Case for the Welfare State: From Social Security to Social Equality, Indiana, Indiana University Press, 1977.

6 i .e. Public assistance or ‘welfare’: the lowest form of which is state/local general (wholly discretionary) assistance for those (e.g. the able-bodied, single unemployed) not favoured with a federally sponsored categorical programme.

332 G O V E R N M E N T A N D OPPOSITION

statements have been allowed - or have been presumed - to follow from crude quantitative leads. The answer (assuming that there are just two factors in play) has to be to separate the one factor from the other. Natural1 , this is more easily said than done. Compiling valid, reliab r e and comparable social spending figures may have its pitfalls, but attempting to type- cast entire packages of social policy, independently of proportionate spending levels, presents a challenge of a different order.

SOCIAL POLICY RECONSIDERED

To describe something as social policy or as constituting a branch or aspect of social policy, says as much about the perceptions of the speaker or writer as it does about the nature of the programme or activities in question. There are two broad shades of meaning to the word ‘social’, in this context. First there is the notion of social as implying some form of ‘caring/ sharing’ quality. Alongside this, however, there is also the notion of ‘social’ as connoting something pertaining to society as a whole. These two notions may in principle be compatible with one another, yet they do not have to go together. ‘Social policy’ may be perceived as being geared primarily to promoting the interests of society as a whole or, alternatively, as being geared primarily to protecting the welfare of vulnerable individuals and groups within it. The notion that social policy may be or should be or is even bound, automatically, to be furthering both ends simultaneously and evenhandedly, smacks more of pious hope than of documented experience to date.

The British, with their Titmuss-fortified tradition of re- gardin social policy first and foremost as a means of promoting

arising out of the nature of society and being beyond the average member’s capacity to resolve unaided), fall into the ‘individuals first’ category. Such social olicy has, of course,

whole (a more integrated community, a healthier and more productive population etc.) and might have been embarked upon from a range of sometimes cynical political motives. Nevertheless the enhancement of individual welfare was (is?) supposed to be what social policy primarily was for.

German concepts of Sozialpolitik imply a different ordering

indivi c f ual/family welfare (meeting ‘social needs’: those needs

been expected to redound to the bene P it of the society as a


of priorities,’ the emphasis being, typically, upon promoting the long-term interests of society as a whole. Individual or family well-being - in respect of such obvious considerations as health, joblincome security, education, housing - is of course to be promoted generally as a means to this end. However, what might be termed ‘last resort’ individual welfare provisions do not properly figure as a branch of Sozialpolitik per se, since these are merely curative rather than preventive.

Such differences or shades of emphasis find their echoes else- where, stemming as they do from ambiguities inherent in the very notion of ‘collective action to enhance welfare’ (the con- ventional British definition of what ‘social policy’ is supposed to be about).8 Thus Richard Titmuss distinguished between what he termed an ‘institutional-redistributive’ (individuals first?) model of social policy, as opposed to one founded upon the idea of ‘industrial achievement-performance’ (society f i r ~ t ? ) . ~ The former sets out to compensate for ‘diswelfares’ arising out of the nature of the society and to lessen inequalities of living standards and of life chances between members of the population. The latter seeks mainly to reward proven work effort and to provide for equality of opportunity (to achieve a differ- ential outcome) in the perceived long-term interests of society as a whole.

These are paradigm, hypothetical cases. Patterns of social policy/social spending are most unlikely to approximate com- pletely to either model in any one national case. However, once such rival concepts are taken as occupying opposite ends of a

7 e.g. Buchi in R. Girod and P. de Laubier (eds), L’gtude de la politique sociale, Berne, Commission Nationale Suisse pour L’UNESCO, 1974; W. J. Cahnman and C. M. Schmitt, ‘The Concept of Social Policy (Sozialpolitik)’, Journal of Social Policy, Vol. 8, Pt. 1, 1979, pp. 47-59; C. Offe, Contradictions ofthe Welfare State, London, Hutchinson, 1984.

8 e.g. T. H. Marshall, Social Policy, London, Hutchinson, 1975 edition; B. N. Rodgers, The Study of Social Policy: A Comparative Approach, London, Allen & Unwin, 1979.

9 Titmuss also suggested a third (or rather first) category: that of the ‘Residual Welfare Model’ whereby social welfare institutions are expected to step in only after market forces, on the one hand, and familylinformal supports, on the other, have failed. However, while all modern Western societies possess some such forms of provision still, none of them rely upon these as their principal strategy any longer. Titmuss, Social Policy: An Introduction, London, Allen & Unwin, 1974, ch. 2.


Welfare Capitalism Welfare Capitalism

Model: Ind. Achievement-Performance Institutional-Redistributive Priority: Society First Individuals First Prime means: Work-related provision Object: Equality of Opportunity A More Fair & More Equal

Citizen-based provision

+ Encouragement to Compete. Society.

FIGURE 1 Welfare-Capitalist Dimensions of Social P o k y

social policy spectrum, they furnish an additional dimension along which to rank the social policy behaviour of Western states - additional, that is, to the established practice of ranking sim ly by proportionate levels of social spending.

levels of social s ending between countries may be fraught with

so that one may be reasonabl confident, in the end, that a more or less consistent

continuum. The same is not necessarily true when it comes to the comparison of social policy ‘orientation’. Is there just one dimension of variance in operation here? To affirm or suggest that there is, is to postulate (Figure 1) that numerous observed sets of variables are in fact all manifestations of one and the same qualitative dimension.

Thus, the dictionary definition of ‘social’ as connoting a ‘caring/sharing’ quality is here bracketed with the ‘individuals first’ approach to social policy, with Titmuss’s ‘institutional- redistributive’ model, with egalitarianlcompensatory, citizen- wide forms of social provision ostensibly geared to the pro- motion of a more ‘fair’ and more equal society. Conversely, ‘social’ as pertaining to the interests of society as a whole is here bracketed with ‘society first’ social policy, with Titmuss’s ‘industrial achievement-performance’ model, with occupation- based/‘reward’ types of social provision designed to sustain and reinforce a competitive (and prosperous) s o c d order.

Neverthe P ess, this procedure begs a vital question. Comparing

practical difficu f ties,” yet compromises are always possible -

countries are being compared aong P

10 For instance, education and housing expenditure may or may not be accounted ‘social’, depending on the country or source concerned; while national ‘public expenditure’ f%ures do not always cover (compulsory) social insurance and may not include expenditure which is locally fmanced.


Lavish social insurance arrangements. Child benefits. Residual provision for ‘the poor’, of whom there are deemed to be few. (W. GERMANY)

High social spending

t Heavy reliance upon (semi-p rivate) social insurance. Strong on child & family benefits. (FRANCE)

I

Lavish socid care provision, alongside moderately lavish social insurance arrangements, backed up by universal benefits for children, old people etc. (SWEDEN)

Welfare Capitalist 4- Wevure Cupitulist

Restricted range of social insurance provision, alongside battery of stigmatized (national), categorical & (local) general assistance. ( U S 4

Cost-conscious social care provision, child benefits & (effectively) minimum universal pension. Backed up by national general & categorical forms of means-tested payments. (UK)

Low social spending

FIGURE 2 Patterns of Welfare Capitalism

The term ‘welfare capitalism’ offers the best prospect of a neutral starting point for summarizing and labelling this alleged dimension: in that it can be taken to refer to all developed Western societies possessed of forms of statutory social intervention and only to these. ‘Welfare’ and ‘capitalism’ put together signify a blending of competitive/‘exchange’ values and practices, on the one hand, with compensatoryl‘gift’ values and practices, on the other. The balance ostensibly struck between these contrasting norms varies from country to country, implying a continuum between extremes of welfare capitalism, on the one hand, and welfare capitalism, on the other. In other words, ‘society first’ social policy is intended, first and foremost, to support and reinforce a capitalist system. ‘Individuals first’ social olicy, by contrast, views capitalism as at best a necessary evif: a generator of resources for subsequent redistri-


bution in the light of avowedly non-market or anti-market criteria.

Once level of social spending and type of social spending are treated as separate factors, we have the beginnings of a two- dimensional picture (Figure 2). Takin Furniss and Tilton’s portrayal of ‘positive state’ us sociaf policy versus ‘social equality state’ Swedish social policy as signifying roughly the opposite ends of the policy spectrum, relatively high ‘social spenders’ may in principle be more - or less - ‘welfare- committed’, just as relatively low social spenders may be like- wise.

Figure 2 offers pen portraits - caricatures rather - of selected countries. Policy area specialists may query, correct or elaborate on the distinctions drawn and/or expand the range of countries referred to in respect of particular fields of provision. Meanwhile, however, it is worth looking for more general indicators in the literature available.

WELFARE CAPITALISM’S INDICATORS ?

Such indicators may be sought by asking three sets of questions: who pays (and proportionately how much) for social policy activity on the part of governments, central and local?; what sorts of social provision (how ‘rich-poor’ redistributive or otherwise) tend to predominate?; what effects has such social provision had to date upon ine ualities in standards of living and in life opportunities? ‘We1 4 are-minded’ regimes might be expected, in principle, to be relatively more reliant upon (steeply progressive) income tax; to be presiding over redistributive, citizen- (rather than work-) based, forms of social provision; to have perhaps - though this is a measure of social policy effectiveness rather than, necessarily, of intent - markedly influenced the distribution of living standards and life chances across all sections of the population in an equalizing direction. Conversely, ‘economy-minded’ regimes might be expected to be opposite on all such counts. Naturally, all such questions - the last in particular - are more easily asked than answered.

Thus, on the first count, it is significant to what extent governmental tax revenues derive from the fruits of income tax (potentially the most ‘progressive’ - i.e. redistributive -


method of taxing individuals/households) , as opposed to social security contributions which, given their fixed percentages and liability ‘ceilings’, are inherently non-progressive, although not regressive to the extent, for instance, of sales or property taxes. The greater the reliance upon income tax, furthermore, the heavier and/or more steeply progressive, income tax rates may turn out to be.

On this count, of all OECD member countries in 1980, France placed the least reliance (a mere 13 per cent) upon income tax as a source of tax revenue. Germany and the UK both relied upon income tax for roughly 30 per cent of national tax revenue, while the USA did so to the tune of 37 per cent, leaving Sweden to to the list at 42 per cent.” Not surprisingly, other OECD studies’ have suggested that France offers one of the lightest and Sweden the heaviest of income tax ‘burdens’ (though in the French case income tax rates, once in play, are more steeply progressive than crude global figures would suggest,13 while, in the case of the UK, information is misleading since it relates to pre-Thatcher, 1978 returns). None of this is ‘ear-marked money’ of course - unlike social security contributions. Social security contributions, however, are less progressive (if progressive at all) and, as Richard Rose14 points out, the extent of a country’s reliance upon social security contributions as a source of public revenue tends to vary inversely with its degree of reliance upon income tax. Thus France heads the social security contribution stakes (44% of national tax revenue) followed by Germany (34%), Sweden (28%), USA (27%) and UK (17%).

Placing these factors (income tax and social security contribution reliance) together does not produce a very tidy or

11 OECD, Revenue Statistics of OECD Member Countries, 1965-81, Paris, OECD. 12 OECD, The TaxlBenefit Position of Selected Income Groups in OECD Member

Countries, 1974-79, Paris, OECD, 1980; OECD, The Weyare State in Crisis, Paris, OECD, 1981.

1 3 I am indebted to Bernard Cazes for drawing my attention to this point. See Jean- Claude Dutailly: ‘Les Prklsvements obligatoires sont-ils progressifs en France?’, Commentaire, No. 25, Spring, 1984, 74-78; also Antoine Coutiire: ‘Augmenter l’imp8t sur le revenu: des mesures de porte‘e ine‘gale’, Socie’te‘, No. 158, September, 1983,21-35.

14 R. Rose, Understanding Big Government: The Programme Approach, London and Beverly Hills, Sage Publications, 1984, p. 106.


complete picture (countries relatively low on both counts, such as the UK for instance, are simply relying more upon yet other sources of tax revenue). Nevertheless it does suggest that there are varying degrees of redistributive potential around. France and Germany each rely more upon social security revenue than they do upon income tax revenue; Sweden, the UK and the USA all (to varying degrees) rely more upon income tax than upon social security contributions.

Moving on to consider the nature of actual social policy undertakings, here the difficulties - both theoretical and practical - become both more apparent and more pronounced. How should one begin to measure de ees of welfare-mindedness

delivery? Ideally this should mean enquiring into the extent to which - if at all - statutory social provisions tend, on balance, disproportionately to favour or at least to be directed towards the less-advantaged in any given society. Unfortunately, national statistics rarely set out to answer this sort of question.

Thus we might have enquired about the extent to which cash transfer expenditure is directed at, or at least skewed in favour of, meeting the needs of the disadvantaged - or anyone with specified ‘social needs’ - as opposed to being geared, primaril 1

entitlements. It is difficult to attempt this, however, so long as most national official statistics refrain not merely from including all forms of cash transfer under one heading, for purposes of comparison, but also refrain for the most part from even separating out cash from ‘care’ arrangements at the local, ‘social assistance’, level.“j

What can be attempted - local social assistance apart - is to enquire into the extent to which ‘social spending’ is devoted to the provision of services in kind as opposed to the payment of cash transfers. The argument here is that, by providing certain services (notably education, health care and possibly housing) in

as evinced by various styles of socia Y policy and of social policy

preferentially, to meeting ‘earned’ (i.e. social insurance) Ys

1 s See for instance T. Wilson (ed.), Pensions, Inflation and Growth: A Comparative Study of the Elderly in the Welfare State, London, Heinemann, 1974, for a useful comparative discussion of the various things this misleading term can imply.

16 Social assistanceluide sociaZe/Sozialhilfe: all forms of local backstop relief tend to be presented as a single, cash/care entity in national statistics. It is only the British who, from 1948, have regarded the cash/care ‘divide’ as being crucial.


kind, the requisite items are thereby being taken out of the market place altogether - a far more radical stratagem, in principle, than that of- merely providing peo le with money with which to compete in the market place t r the goods or services in question, To be sure, providing everyone with a service (or even some people as in the case of housing or per- sonal social care) does not mean, necessarily, that those most in need will benefit most from its availability.” Nevertheless this is not to deny the egalitarian potential of such a strategy.

All Western countries provide ‘universal’ education services in kind. Most of them, however, do not attempt the same in respect of health care services and none of them, of course, attempts to furnish everyone with a house. Even so we may follow Jurgen Kohl in noting the difference between what he terms ‘Scandinavian’ as opposed to ‘Continental’ European traditions of public expenditure.’* The first - also largely followed by the UK - traditionally places emphasis upon public consumption expenditures (i.e. the provision of services in kind), whereas the second traditionally places more emphasis upon the role of social transfers (i.e. cash benefits). This is a pattern born out by subsequent evidence (Table 2). Once again, Britain and Sweden are shown as spending more on social provision in kind than in cash, in contrast to France and West Germany; while the US seems to be inclined more towards the ‘Continental’ pattern.

So far, therefore, France and Germany stand out, both in respect of taxation emphasis and public spending inclination, as being seemingly less welfare-minded than either the UK or Sweden, quite apart from differences in proportionate levels of social spending. The USA, meanwhile, appears to be hovering in between.

This brings us to the most awkward and as yet under- researched question: how far have the various forms of welfare capitalism postulated, shown themselves to be redistributive in their social effects? Here, if the patterns noted above refer to

17 Witness, for instance, the accumulated evidence on NHS usage in Britain. 1 8 J. Kohl, ‘Trends and Problems in Postwar Public Expenditure Development in

Western Europe and North America’ in P. Flora and A. Heidenheimer (eds), The Development of Welfare States in Europe and America, New Brunswick and London, Transaction Books, 1981. See Fig. 9.1, p. 314.

cc, P 0

TABLE 2 General government expenditure by finction

per cent of GDP

France Germany UK us Sweden (1979) (1 980) (1979) (1978) (1982)

Total expenditure 45.2 48.6 41.7 32.7 66.2 Defence 3.4 2.9 4.7 4.6 3.1 ‘Merit goods’ (e.g. education, health, housing) 14.6 13.9 13.9 8.9 18.1** Income maintenance 17.9 19.0 11.7 9.8 19.6 of which:

Pensions 10.5 12.2 6.6 6.7 Sickness 1.8 0.8 0.4 0.1 Family allowances 2.1 1.1 1.4 0.5 Unemployment comp. 1.2* 0.9 0.7 0.4 Other 2.3 4.0 2.6 2.1

* 1978. **1981, re education, health care & social welfare expenditure. Sources: OECD Observer, No. 123, March 1983.

Yearbook of Nordic Statistics, 1984. Statitisk Arsbok (Statistical Abstract of Sweden), 1984.

TYPES O F WELFARE CAPITALISM 34 1

significant rather than trivial differences, we should expect to find that Swedish society has been rendered much less unequal in respect of living standards and life chances in the course of the last 30-40 years, whereas in France and West Germany inequalities might, if anything, have been rendered more pronounced.

Translating such propositions into measurable - and hence testable - terms, however, represents a task bristling with methodological difficulties, as anyone who has attempted sin le country analyses of this nature would confirm.lg To the di P fi- culties of measuring income before tax and contributions (e.g. how comprehensive are the sources available? what sorts of income are included? what should be the ‘income unit’ employed - individuals or households?) must be added the problems of measuring post-tax/post-benefit income including, ideally, the imputed value and distribution of any social provisions in kind bearing upon standards of living. It is scarcely surprising, therefore, to find that those who have busied themselves exploring aspects of inequality cross-nationally have not, so far, come up with a series of linked case-studies comparing the impact of social policy upon income distribution and upon degrees of inequality in standards of living. All the same it is disappointing to find that what should surely be the question of consummate interest at least for British students of social reform, is so regularly side-stepped.”

To be sure, valuable preliminary work in this area has come from Kraus whose paper on ‘The Historical Development of Income Inequality in Western Europe and the United States’ reviews the methodological problems involved, suggests a frame- work’’ for analysing the processes involved in the translation from market income to eventual spending power and summarizes

19 e.g. I . Gough, The Political Economy of the Welfare State, London, Macmillan, 1979.

‘0 e.g. V. George and R. Lawson (eds), Poverty and Inequality in Common Market Countries, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980; R. Walker, R. Lawson and P. Townsend, Responses fo Poverty: Lessons from Europe, London, Heinemann, 1984.

2 1 F. Kraus, ‘The Historical Development of Income Inequality in Western Europe and the United States’, in P. Flora and A. Heidenheimer (eds), op. cit. See Fig. 6.1, pp. 199-201.


the evidence available to date on re tax distribution of income

from this information, such as it is. The degree of inequality apparently prevailing on the eve of postwar ‘welfare statism’ seems unrelated to the extent to which ostensibly redistributive social policy objectives were pursued thereafter; while a ‘pro- welfare’ orientation, as defined and measured here, does not seem to have worked towards the creation of a more egalitarian ‘welfare society’ to the extent that some must have hoped it would. One score point for Western Marxism perhaps.

in selected countries over time.2 P - Two negative points emerge

W E L F A R E CAPITALISM’S P R O S P E C T S ?

The nature of relationships between social policy and the state of society is now a focus of urgent interest and speculation among both politicians and commentators - witness the pro- liferation and duplication of ‘crisis’ conferences, study roups, books and essay collections over the past few years!3 Too many of these productions, however, whether from naivett or undue politeness, have seemed to treat ‘social policy’ as if it were a uniform entity (albeit with functional subdivisions) upon which countries spend more or less in order to deliver more or less of it to their respective populations. This article has urged the necessity of distinguishing, not merely between quantities of social spending but also between the different kinds of social policy upon which money is being spent.

The two-dimensional picture - spending x orientation - here presented, suggests two targets for contemporary crisis monitoring: changes in proportionate levels of social spending, and shifts with regard to the sorts of social policy beinf spent upon. A drive to switch emphasis from welfare capitaism to welfare capitalism need not mean a reduction in social spending, as is already apparent from the British case. It may be, in the longer term however, that different types of social policy will prove more or less resistant to attempts to contain the growth of social expenditure. The evidence so far is ambiguous.

This is, ironically, an excellent time to be a student of social policy.

22 F. Kraus, op. cit., Fig. 6.4, pp. 199-201. 13 OECD, The Welfare State in Crisis; R. Mishra, The Welfare State in Crisis: Social

Thought and Soda2 Change, Brighton, Wheatsheaf Books, 1984; C. Offe, op. cit.

Documents

Types of Welfare Capitalism