On The Welfare State From The Perspective Of The Social Contract Theory

The welfare state is a major researching project with great theoretical and practical significance. This paper regards the social contract theory as the breakthrough point, trying to widen the theory vision of the welfare state and social welfare system study through the introduction of the social contract theory, and trying to understand of the historical evolution state and the essential connotation of the welfare, through building contractual relationship between the state and citizen ,and proposing new thinking to the reform of welfare state.The first part is Introduction. The purpose and significance of the research is explained briefly, the current research situation of the welfare state of domestic and international is reviewed, and the innovative of regarding social contract theory as the research perspective which is that which is help for understanding of the welfare state comprehensively and historical. is pointed out.The second part is the general analysis to the social contract theory. First, the history and the themes of the social contract theory are sort out. Then, the basic content and the values of he social contract theory is pointed out. Freedom and equality, democracy and justice, voluntary and consensual, co-operational and mutually beneficial is the basic content, and the relationship between the state and citizen is the contractual distribution with the right and obligation. The social contract theory has provided the base of legitimacy for the establishing of modern western nationalist and democratic state. The western state is contractual state which is guided by the contract theory.The third part is about of the welfare system and the practice on the social contract of the welfare state. Social welfare system is a social collective behavior which protects the citizen civil rights by the state power, and obtaining the protection from the welfare system becoming a legitimate right of citizens in the industrial era. The welfare state is characteristic of the max- output of the welfare system by which the social rights of citizens are protected fully, and the same time, the power of the state obtains a legal reason to exist. The welfare state is the development form of the social contractual state in the industrial era. The welfare state is the full practice on the social contractual values and rules which realizes the "win-win situation" between the state and the citizen.The fourth part is about of the plight of the welfare state. The plight of the welfare state is the disintegration of the "win-win situation". The welfare system has not only effectively achieved its goal of the system, but has brought many problems. The external reason of the plight is a challenge of environmental change on the social welfare system, and the inherent reason is the crisis of the social contract: between the state and the citizen.The fifth part is a discussion of the reform of welfare state. The reform of new liberalism has deviated from the social contractual foundations which has not helped the welfare state extricate oneself from the plight, but has brought the passive social influence instead. The key of solving the plight of welfare state is the reconstruction of the social agreement in the field of social welfare: establishing the new-type social justice view; standardizing the contractual relation between state and citizen. The theory of "The Third Way" is a kind of new exploration of the capitalist traditional political issue, which is the positive response to the series of questions brought by globalization. The theory and policy of "The Third Way" are practice of the new social welfare contract.