The welfare state and social wage: The case of the United Kingdom, 1953-1986

This dissertation is primarily concerned with the Post-War II development of the social wage in the United Kingdom and its economic and social boundaries. Other empirical studies in this field have generally focused on the redistribution of income among different income brackets. The objective of the present study is to examine the net benefit/burden position of the working population with respect to the state expenditures and taxes in this period. The Post-War period is chosen firstly because the required data for prior history are lacking, and second because this period coincides with the emergence and the development of welfare state institutions in the United Kingdom.;There are three major issues which this research will address. First, this dissertation will provide a framework to analyze the growing significance of the "social wage" or the collectivization of consumption by the working population and the share of social consumption in their total consumption. This will help to provide a better understanding of the resource allocation in the private and the state sectors of the economy and to determine if the activities of the state have grown to become the substitute or just the complementary to private production of goods and services.;Second, the analysis of the social expenditures and the "net social wage" trends will allow linking the post-war development of the welfare state and social wage in Britain to other aspects of societal developments. The findings of this dissertation will be used to determine to what extent the welfare programs' developments have been shaped by changing economic constraints and social and political conditions. These findings will also be analyzed to explore the possible interaction between the trends of social expenditures and the economic slow-down (or crisis) of the last two decades.;Third, the evidence presented in this dissertation provides an empirical foundation to analyze and evaluate the validity of the major models on the crisis of the welfare state in the context of Britain. The evidence will be used to determine whether the growth of social transfer payments and social expenditures have led to the government "overload," as conservatives have suggested or to the "fiscal crisis of the state," as some radicals have predicted. The findings will also provide a basis to test the hypothesis that the continuous increase of the social wage or "citizen wage" has adversely affected the after-tax rate of profit and has consequently resulted in a slow-down in accumulation and economic growth.