Welfare State' Today in Contemporary Britain? The Essay

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welfare state' today in contemporary Britain?

The British view of welfare has always been one of conducting government as a beneficent and paternalistic entity that was engaged in making sure citizens had what they needed for basic survival (Field, 2011). This view was first garnered by the liberals of the 1960's and it was furthered, as the years went along, until the present day. There were some hiccups in the process during the Thatcher years, but welfare continued to grow.

The term for this continued growth of the welfare rolls and the benefits received by the people enrolled in welfare is the "welfare state" (Will, 2011). The government in Britain spends more money on welfare than any other nation on Earth and the British public sector is the sixth largest jobs supplier globally (Will, 2011). The welfare state is basically a beast that consumes almost everything that people work for, and redistributes it to people who apparently need to money more than the person who made it in the first place.

This welfare state, that has existed and grown for more than 40 years, was said to be the first priority of the new Conservative government. However, they have shown that they are not able to completely reduce a problem that has taken so long to build up. A welfare state makes the people dependent on it, and the state must respond or they are likely to be voted out of office (Spicker, 2011). Since the conservative government does not have a strong mandate to start with, it is likely that they will not be able to reduce the spending required by the welfare state to any great degree.

References

Field, F., (2011). The welfare state -- Never ending reform. BBC. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/field_01.shtml

Spicker, P., (2011). An introduction to social policy. Retrieved from http://www2.rgu.ac.uk/publicpolicy/introduction/uk.htm

Will, G., (2011, Aug 10). Britain tackles the welfare state.

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The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/britain-tackles-the- welfare-state/2011/08/09/gIQAMpMJ7I_story.html

3. Which social movements have been most important in the making of the British welfare state?

According to Field (2011), the origins of the welfare state go back to medieval times when hospitals run by state sponsored religious institutions were designed to give assistance to the elderly and those who could not take care of themselves. In the 1800's a poor law was established in which people were sent by the government back to their parishes for help if they were deemed unable to meet the rigors of the city (Field, 2011). But, these were not the specific origins of the modern welfare state.

These began to take place in the late 1800's and the early part of the last century (Berry, 2010). The British looked to the new power in Europe, Germany because the chancellor had been successful in appeasing the people and avoiding a socialist government. Many of the powers in Europe were worried that they would be toppled by citizens who sought better living conditions, so Bismarck gave them to his people by instituting insurance that gave people coverage against accidents, health crises and old age. He was basically trying to control the people by using a new form of the old Roman adage of "bread and circuses." The "bread" in this case was the assurance of health coverage and an old age pension.

The British would toy with these allowances during the early 1900's, but the full welfare state did not occur until after the Beveridge report following World War II (Hudson, 2012). Beveridge saw that people were doomed to live in uneducated squalor and the government could correct that. He advocated for a National Health Service and education reform among other things......

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