A Study Of William Beberidge's Thought On Social Security

William Beveridge ( 1879-1963 ) is a well-known British social reformer, economist, he devoted his life to the eradication of social poverty, the maintenance of full employment, and the establishment and perfection of Social Security System in England. In 1941, as a chairman of the inter-Departmental Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services, Beveridge was responsible for investigating the existing social insurance programs and related services in the United Kingdom, working out post-war schemes of social security in the country, and putting forward concrete blue print and suggestions. In 1942 he published the famous report Social Insurance and Allied Service, namely, The Beveridge Report. This report affected the system of British social security as well as the development of many other countries in establishment of society security system. This report is an important milestone document in the human history of the development of social security. Immediately after the wars England set up welfare state on the basis of the report. So Beveridge is known as "father of the welfare state".This dissertation takes The Beveridge Report as the text of analysis, to survey historically the main ideas of Beveridge on social security reform, including the ideas of eradication of poverty, full employment policies and so on, and especially explains his six core concepts on social insurance. They are: life security of national minimum, contributory insurance, labor exchange, family allowances, comprehensive health and rehabilitation services, full employment. This article begins with these points, the historic background and the great changes in social thoughts at the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century to discuss Beveridge's experiences as a social worker in the reform of social security. And it discusses also and the impacts by Benthamite utilitarianism. Social organism theory and Collective ideology on his theory.The article attempts to analyze the theoretical sources of Beveridge's thoughts on Social Security. Beveridge is a New-liberal, and experienced the great changes during the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries in morality, thoughts and politics in Europe. When he was young he witnessed the severe social poverty. He also experienced two world wars and the brutal killings and the tragedy of the Great Depression. All of these enabled him to believe that it is very important for the state to intervene in social distribution. Specifically he was greatly influenced by new-liberalism and Fabian socialism. Concretely speaking, in the policies of national economic reform, such as redistribution of property, the state's economic intervention, full employment, Beveridge mainly absorbed the thoughts of new-liberalism; while in the policies of social reform, such as the idea of collectivism, national minimum, income redistribution, the eradication of poverty, he mainly absorbed the ideas of Fabian socialism. Finally, the article discusses the main features of Beveridge's social security reform in different periods of his life and surveys the meanings of Beveridge thoughts on social security reform and the Beveridge Report looking from the historical development during the last one hundred years.