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Reviewed by:
  • Welfare
  • Alvin Finkel
Mary Daly, Welfare (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press 2011)

This concise book of fewer than 200 pages packs a great deal of theory and information within its covers. Daly, professor of sociology at Queen’s University Belfast, has published extensively on the changing social policy environment within the United Kingdom and the European Union. But, while her examples in Welfare are largely limited to these two sources, with a few glances at the United States, she provides a philosophical and sociological overview that makes this little book the new touchstone for the study of social policy everywhere. Its readability will assure it an important place as a textbook in courses on social policy within a range of disciplines.

Daly traces the history of the concept of “welfare” from the 14th century to the present, demonstrating changing perspectives on what welfare embraces, whose welfare the state and private charities are expected to focus upon, and different types of welfare regimes that have come and gone. She makes a clear separation between “welfare states” and the more general concept of welfare, reminding readers of Richard Titmuss’ perspective that fiscal and occupational arrangements are as important to welfare as social programs. Non-state provision of care is also part of what we think of as welfare. Daly tries to demonstrate the links among all of these, though her focus is tilted towards the welfare state.

An important focus of this book is the strong movement in recent decades away from the collectivist notions that underpin support for a “welfare state” both within the state and among theoreticians and practitioners of social policy. Indeed the word “welfare” has fallen out of fashion because some theoreticians believe that it robs recipients of agency while others suggest that it favours the idea of entitlements without obligations. Daly argues that the words that others wish to substitute for “welfare” are flawed and reflect an individualist emphasis with an overlay of either neo-liberal thinking or simply an emphasis on individual empowerment devoid of the context in which particular individuals make their life choices. To that extent, they reinforce neo-liberal arguments that suggest, against all the research evidence, that state efforts to create greater equality produce a lazy citizenry unwilling to work or invest or participate within communities. As Daly notes, the research evidence suggests that the more equality within a society, the more that people feel a sense of community and join community groups of all kinds. The Scandinavian welfare states have historically had low rates of unemployment and high rates of economic productivity.

She particularly takes on advocates of subjective well-being and happiness, noting that they mute the importance of social and economic inequalities, and make social justice and more equality in the distribution of wealth appear to be unnecessary goals. Ignoring the power relations within societies, and the degree to which corporations determine what jobs and how much employment will be offered at a given time, those who emphasize individual adjustment as the basis for social policy mask the subservience of workers to capitalists. With their shallow exploration of politics and economics, the advocates of empowerment turn the topsy-turvy world that capital creates for labour into a realm of opportunities for subordinate people who can think positively and acquire the skills wanted at the moment by capital.

Daly observes the extent to which not only conservative political parties have embraced neo-liberalism, but with almost equal fervour social democrats, including Tony Blair’s former Labour [End Page 245] government. The postwar brand of social democracy in Britain, while accepting the private marketplace as the main organizer of economic life, also assumed that markets left to their own devices did not create social justice. As Asa Briggs argued, the purpose of the welfare state was to modify the workings of the private marketplace by guaranteeing everyone a minimum income, narrowing social insecurities by guaranteeing income for social contingencies such as unemployment and illness, and insuring the best standard of service for everyone in areas where it was agreed that the state should provide services, such as health and education. (59) By contrast, Tony Blair rarely spoke of problems...

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