Achievements And Crisis: The Evolution Of The British Welfare State

'Welfare state' can be regarded as a special phenomenon during the course of the development of capitalism in the twentieth century. A study of its rise and fall is helpful to our deeper understanding of capitalist societies. The year of 2002 is the sixtieth anniversary of what is regarded to be the 'blueprint' for the British Welfare State, the Beveridge Report. A historical appreciation of what has happened in Britain, the author believes, may provide valuable information as to the welfare construction in China. There is an extensive literature on this subject from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. This thesis aims to examine chronologically the evolution of the British Welfare State and present an objective assessment of its achievements and crisis.The emergence of welfare states is one of those biggest changes that took place in Western countries during the twentieth century. Welfare policy is closely related to the broad political, economic and social development of a country. Britain established the first welfare state in the world in 1948, when a wide range of social legislation was implemented by the postwar Attlee government on the basis of Beveridge Report with elements of Fabian Socialism. This is an inevitable product of social development during the course of transformation from a traditional agricultural society to a modern industrial one. The achievement lay in the adoption of two basic principles. The first was universalism, or the equal inclusion of everyone in the same insurance scheme. The second was comprehensiveness, which meant the insurance of everyone against every possible risk. To some extent the welfare state is progress of society in ensuring the basic living conditions of the common people, but its fundamental purpose is to preserve the stability of the capitalist system.The 1950s and 1960s, characterized by considerable expansion of social provision based on a rough consensus, may be considered the heyday of the welfare state. Following the abandonment of the commitment to full employment in the mid-1970s, the British Welfare State came under attack from both Left and Right. The crisis was a compound of economic and political factors. The Thatcher administrations witnessed structural changes made to the welfare state, which implied a more prominent role of the private sector in welfare provision. The consequence was a rapid acceleration of social divide. At present, the Blair government also carries out a series of reforms with focus increasingly upon the 'mixed economy', but the results are far from satisfactory.Seen from the Marxist point of view, the welfare state is but an attempt to deal with the contradictions and problems of the capitalist system without changing its nature. The reform was carried out within the system and thus not a thorough one. Although the impact of the free-market economy has been modified, capitalism is still the predominant form of economic organization. Therefore, the welfare state can never keep the balance between economic efficiency and social justice. The only way to remove its crisis is the formationof a fully developed socialist state.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter I forms an essential background to the rest of the thesis by clarifying some general theories about the welfare state. Chapter II reviews how the British Welfare State was established in the 1940s. A discussion of the so-called consensus is the subject of Chapter III. Chapter IV deals with the theory of Thatcherism and its impact upon the welfare state. In the final chapter the focus is on the status quo and possible future of the British Welfare State.