The Welfare State and Individual Freedom: Attitudes to Welfare Spending and to the Power of the State
| Published date | 01 December 1983 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1983.tb01358.x |
| Author | Peter Taylor-Gooby |
| Date | 01 December 1983 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Political
Studies
(1983),
XXXI,
640-649
The
Welfare State and Individual Freedom:
Attitudes
to
Welfare Spending
and
to
the Power of The State*
PETER
TAYLOR-GOOBY
University
of
Kent
Government spending on welfare programmes expanded steadily during the
fifties and sixties. Over the last decade this process has been abruptly halted by
expenditure constraints stemming from the 1973 oil crisis and the policies
associated with obtaining the 1975
IMF
loan, and more recently the election of
a government committed to radical change. ‘The balance of our society has
been increasingly tilted in favour
of
the State . . . This election may be the last
chance we have to reverse that process .
.
.’.l
The 1979 conservative govern-
ment added a new and ideological tinge
to
the piecemeal cuts
of
the previous
administration. A major aspect of this
is
the trend to substitute private for
public welfare services evinced in the sale
of
council houses, the encourage-
ment of private landlordism through ‘short hold’ tenure, the restoration of
tax-incentives to occupational health insurance and support for pay-beds, the
introduction
of
a fresh subsidy to independent schools through the assisted
places scheme and the transference
of
responsibility for the first weeks
of
sick
pay from national insurance to the employer. A recently-leaked Central Policy
Review Staff report presages more far-reaching changes, with the introduction
of
voucher schemes in education, the ending of indexation for state pensions
(which would make private provision far more attractive), and the use of
private insurance for the finance of the major part
of
health care.2
Popular support for the welfare state may be on the decline.
A
‘welfare
backlash’ is evident in many advanced capitalist
state^.^
Recent work
demonstrates the strength of public concern at the level of welfare spending on
the undeserving poor.4 While welfare issues were probably not decisive in the
1979 election, the lack
of
popular protest against welfare services cuts, as
opposed to the loss
of
jobs by welfare workers,
is
striking. This paper uses
*
I
am grateful to the SSRC Data Archive and to Joan Dobby of the University of Kent
1
Conservative Party Election Manifesto
(1979),
p.
5.
*
See ‘Thatcher’s Think-Tank takes aim at the Welfare State’,
The Economist
(18 September
3
H.
Wilensky,
The New Corporatism
(California, Sage, 1976).
4
P.
Golding and
S.
Middleton,
Images
of
Welfare
(London, Martin Robertson, 1982), ch.
8.
Computing Centre for assistance with data analysis.
1982).
p.
25.
0032-3217/83/04/0640-10/$03.00
0
1983
Political Studies
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