Barry - Welfare

Barry, Norman P

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Second Edition

Concepts in Social Thought

Published Titles

Democracy, Second Edition Citizenship

Welfare, Second Edition Freedom

Bureaucracy, Second Edition Nationalism Trotskyism Revolution and Counter-Revolution Policy Socialism Exchange Social Science Power Rights Science

Liberalism, Second Edition The State Kinship Sovereignty Utopianism Postmodernity Ideology, Second Edition Pluralism Fascism Property Capitalism Class

Ecologism

Status

Anthony Arblaster J. M. Barbalet Norman P. Barry Zygmunt Bauman

David Beetham Craig Calhoun Alex Callinicos

Peter Calvert H. K. Colebatch Bernard Crick John Davis Gerard Delanty Keith Dowding Michael Freeden Steve Fuller

John Gray

John A. Hall and G. John Ikenberry

C. C. Harris

John Hoffman

Krishan Kumar

David Lyon

David McLellan Gregor McLennan Mark Neocleous Alan Ryan Peter Saunders Richard Scase Mark J. Smith Bryan S. Turner

Concepts in Social Thought

Second Edition

M

IN

NE

SO

TA

University of Minnesota Press

Minneapolis

Copyright 1999 Norman P. Barry

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

First published by Open University Press 1999

Published simultaneously in the United States 1999 by the University of Minnesota Press

111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290, Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu

Printed in Great Britain

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barry, Norman P.

Welfare/Norman Barry.

p. cm. (Concepts in social thought)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8166-3224-3 (hardcover : alk. paper). ISBN 0-8166-3225-1 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Public welfare. 2. Welfare state. I. Title. II. Series.

HV51.B37 1998 361dc21

98-17007

CIP

ISBN 0-8166-3224-3 (he) ISBN 0-8166-3225-1 (pb)

The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.

j

Preface to the First Edition vii

Preface to the Second Edition xi

1 The Idea of Welfare in Political Thought 1

2 Utilitarianism and the Origins of Welfare Philosophy 15

3 Anti-individualism: From the Minimal State to the

Welfare State 30

4 Liberal Political Economy and Welfare 43

5 The Critique of Individualism and the Ethics

of Welfare 61

6 Justice, Equality and Welfare 78

7 Welfare, the Welfare State and Politics 92

8 Welfare: A Postscript 121

Notes 139

Select Bibliography 147

Index 152

Contemporary social and political thought is dominated by the concept of welfare in a way that would have surprised commentators in the last century. It is not that discourse about it was absent then. This is far from being the case since the ideas used in current political argument about welfare were first formulated at least two hundred years ago. The real difference is the central importance that is now attached to them. The injunction for the state to maximize a rather vague and diffuse thing called welfare, well-being or satisfaction now appears to override all other political values, whereas at one time this was understood to be a subordinate item on the agenda of government. Even some antistatist writers regard well-being in some sense or other as the sole desideratum of existence, even though they argue that it is achieved through individual experiences rather than from direct political action. It is this that makes it a peculiarly modern concept.

In this short book I have tried to outline the central features of the concept and to explicate its role in typical political arguments. Inevitably, this enterprise involves a discussion of welfare in the context of other political concepts, such as justice, equality, freedom and rights. One of the major problems is extracting it from these notions so as to isolate its distinctive characteristics. However, this is an extraordinarily difficult task because any review of welfare is certain to be overladen with highly contentious suppositions about the substantive ends of political life: the role of the state and the significance that is to be attached to individual self-fulfilment being the key areas of dispute.

Welfare

viii

I have tried to show that one of the most decisive elements in contemporary thought is the assimilation of the idea of welfare to the state. Put simply, this means that in political argument, outside more abstract political philosophy, welfare is inextricably tied up with the policies and institutions of the contemporary welfare state. However, this association is qeither analytically compelling nor an accurate historical picture. Economists and social philosophers have indicated that there is a variety of sources of well-being and only in the mid-twentieth century did it become part of an intellectual consensus that political authorities should be primarily responsible for their provision. Indeed, that consensus was shortlived and in contemporary political thought we are witnessing a strident rejection by important writers of the aforementioned assimilation.