History
The United Kingdom, as a welfare state in the modern sense, was anticipated by the Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws 1832 which found that the old poor law was subject to widespread abuse and promoted squalor, idleness and criminality in its recipients, compared to those who received private charity. Accordingly, the qualifications for receiving aid were tightened up, forcing many recipients to either turn to private charity or accept employment.
Opinions began to be changed late in the century by the reports drawn up by men such as Joseph Rowntree and Charles Booth into the levels of poverty in Britain. These reports indicated that in the massive industrial cities of the north, between one-quarter and one-third of the population were living below the poverty line.
After the United Kingdom general election, 1906, the Labour Party became a serious competitor to the Liberal Party. The resulting Liberal welfare reforms laid the foundations of the modern welfare state. The reforms were greatly extended over the next forty years. Certainly, governments which had seen the wave of communist revolts after the First World War were keen to ensure that deeper reforms reduced the risk of mass social unrest after the Second World War. In addition, modern, complex industry had more need for a healthy and educated workforce than older industries had. Crucially, the experience of almost total state control during the Second World War had inured the population to the idea that the state might be able to solve problems in wide areas of national life. Finally, it seems likely that the social mixing involved in mass evacuation of children, and of service in the armed forces, had increased support for welfare among the middle classes.
The Beveridge Report of 1942, (which identified five "Giant Evils" in society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease) essentially recommended a national, compulsory, flat rate insurance scheme which would combine health care, unemployment and retirement benefits. Beveridge himself was careful to emphasize that unemployment benefits should be held to a subsistence level, and after six months would be conditional on work or training, so as not to encourage abuse of the system. After its victory in the United Kingdom general election, 1945 the Labour Party pledged to eradicate the Giant Evils, and undertook policy measures to provide for the people of the United Kingdom "from the cradle to the grave."
Read more about this topic: Welfare State
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)