The Irreversible Welfare State: Its Recent Maturation, its Encounter with the Economic Crisis, and its Future Prospects

Abstract

The rise of the welfare state in the 1960s and 1970s meant important changes within the Western states: apparatuses of armed forces, bureaucratic ordering, and public transport and communication became institutions of transfer payments to households, and public education, caring and social services. In this article we describe the influence of the current economic crisis on the welfare state. Average yearly growth of social security expenditure continues, but has declined since 1981. Generous systems of social security clearly provide no security against the consequences of the economic crisis, especially unemployment. Public commitment to social security and full employment are largely independent of each other. We describe how, under the surface of welfare state growth, the political relations of force have changed in favor of those social forces advocating fundamental reappraisal of the welfare state over those supporting its maintenance or extension. The resistance to significant changes is so strong, however, that fundamental reconstruction of the welfare state is as yet excluded. We hold that the welfare state is an irreversible major institution of advanced capitalist countries, as long as democracy prevails. The building of a majoritarian anti-welfare state coalition seems impossible for the foreseeable future, but in some countries significant cuts must be expected; we end by specifying some economic and political preconditions for such cuts.