The Construction Of Social Policy In The United States,Germany And Sweden And Its Enlightenment

It's a basic function of modern social policy to correct, limit market mechanism by application of political power to maintain social cohesion and ensure social sustained operation. It is a basic function of redistribution mechanism of social policy to stabilize and adjust income gap in control of society generally accepted range, namely justice. Income gap is the most direct reflection of configuration of economic resources among the members of society, which reflects a society's social policies in the choice between fairness and efficiency-social justice. During the course of human's history, any social production must be in the framework of system, and the justice of system is the guarantee of the continuity of all economic activity. From the whole development of the society, social justice is the premise and condition of social existence and the development, unfair system will inevitably bring about social disintegration and reconstruction. Social justice can not be obtained by the development of the market economy spontaneously. Without the intervention of social policy, the income gap will expand. So the social justice reflects a country's social policy's most basic value orientation, and the choice of social policy in different countries'stability and development has the strongest correlation with the basic characteristics of this society.Social policy is accompanied by the establishment of the capitalist mode of production. In a certain sense, the function of social policy is to regulate and inhibit the inevitable result of social differentiation and inequality which are inevitably brought about by market mechanism, to ease the social contradictions, so as to ensure the continuous operation of the capitalist mode of production. Therefore, the rise, development and evolution of social policy are closely linked to the rise, development and evolution of modern capitalist mode of production. The capitalist mode of production is fully established in the middle of nineteenth Century in the west, and then the economic crisis in1929-1933years forced it to make a bigger adjustment comprehensively. After the so-called "golden era" from the end of the World War II to the1970s, the development of capitalist production meant into the doldrums again. With the above three stages of the development of capitalist production, the development of social policies in the west has roughly gone through three stages of innovation, overall construction and the adjustment consistently. Although in different countries of different stages of development, the content, scope and strength of social policy are different, but its social function or goal is the same, that is to control the social inequality within a certain range caused by the market mechanism.Of course, because the possession of means of production is not equal under capitalism, social inequality is comprehensive, including education resources possession, employment, social mobility, life style, social media and range etc. This article thinks that all these inequalities can be traced back to the inequality of the social income occupies In the final analysis. Therefore, although the social policy is rich in content, its specific functions are diverse, but in the final analysis we can say that social policy is a kind of regulating system tools of income gap in nature.Although the market mechanism or the theory of the so-called" invisible hand" has been holding a dominant position in income allocation in the western society so far, But since the late nineteenth Century, when the social policy has been established in the west countries widely, the state, or so-called" visible hand" has never stopped regulating on the income gap. In China, the government has held a dominant position in the regulation of income distribution In planned economy period. Since the Reforming and Opening, we reintroduced market mechanism to adjust the income distribution. Although this has greatly promoted our economic development, but it also led to a widening income gap and then cause a series of social problems. To this end, the government of our country has strengthened the construction of social policy in recent years. In fact, the goal of building a harmonious society we put forward must be implemented by a series of social policy. But in China, there are different voices in academic and theoretical circles. One idea is that the income gap is not terrible in our society at present. It is the result of our country's relatively low economic development level. Once the level of economic develops to a certain height, income gap will narrow naturally. People who holds this view often quotes the so-called" Kuznets Curve" as their theoretical basis, and thinks that most of the western developed countries have had the same experience. In some sense, this paper is to refute this view. The article thinks that income gap will be bigger and bigger but never a natural shrinking under market mechanism. In western developed countries, income gap do has the trend of gradually shrinking, but this is not the natural results of western economy's highly development, it is the result of the social policy which played a regulating role of western countries. Accordingly, this paper is divided into the following sections:The introduction clarifies the purpose, significance and the basic concepts in this paper, sums up the current research, puts forward the basic research hypotheses and research train of thought. The first chapter summarizes the development of the social policy, and its basic social function, points out that the social justice in modern society is the basic orientation of social policy, and has an important role in social's harmony development that cannot be replaced. From the second chapter to the fourth, we analysis the development process and its adjustment to income gap of three different types of typical social policy respectively of American, German and Swedish, discuss the relationship among economic development, income distribution and social policy, demonstrate the important role of social policy in adjusting the distribution of income and the maintaining social justice, safeguarding social order and promoting social development. In chapter five I analysis the enlightenment to China of the construction of social policy of the US, Germany and Sweden. At last we draw the final conclusion based on the evolution of three patterns of social policy and its function in the adjustment of income gap.The main point of this paper includes the following aspects:â… . Justice is not only an ethics and political philosophy, but rather a concept of social members' economic interests. The policy choice in a society in dealing with the relationship between justice and efficiency is actually a reflection of social justice on social structure and social policy level.â…¡. Income gap reflects the impartiality degree of social policy. Different characteristics of three different types of national income gap are different expression of its social policy on fairness. Because the society is a composite system, is far from enough to use only the economic efficiency and fairness in consideration to study it.III. By studying the development process of social policy in liberalism, cooperation and social democratic model welfare state, we can see clearly that although the theoretical background and the variety of ethnic traditions makes them different in the policy choice of justice, social policy has become an important tool to promote social justice, control income gap and safeguard social coordinated development in all of these types of countries. Under certain conditions, by adjustment and improvement of social policy, not only can we coordinate the contradiction of fairness and efficiency effectively, but also can make the two promote each other, acquire social benign operation and development.â…£. Any society which wants to achieve harmony and develop continuously, must control the income gap, especially the disposable income gap which directly relates to the level of people's actually live in a certain range. The actual income gap is associated with the understanding of social justice and the social policy in a country directly rather than the level of its economic development level.