Synopses & Reviews
These essays from distinguished scholars explore the history and justification of the welfare state and examine private alternatives to the public provision of aid. The essays explore the history of voluntarist arrangements, social insurance programs designed to provide for the elderly after their retirement, the nature of personal responsibility, and the impact of identity politics on the welfare state. Still others assess the success or failure of public housing, government assistance to veterans, or other specific programs, suggesting ways of reforming, expanding, or replacing them.
Synopsis
This collection explores justifications of the welfare state and examines private alternatives to public aid.
Synopsis
Explores the history and justification of the welfare state and examine private alternatives to the public provision of aid. Essays focus on the nature of personal responsibility, the impact of identity politics on the welfare state, and the various strategies that have been proposed to deal with the problem of poverty.
Table of Contents
Guarantees David Schmidtz; 'This Enormous Army': the mutual aid tradition of American fraternal societies before the twentieth century David T. Beito; Two conceptions of welfare: voluntarism and incorporationism Stephen Davies; Standards versus struggle: the failure of public housing and the welfare-state impulse Howard Husock; The G. I. Bill and US social policy past and future Theda Skocpol; Can old-age social insurance be justified? Daniel Shapiro; Privatization of social security: the transition issue Peter J. Ferrara; Can democracy promote the general welfare? James M. Buchanan; Freedom and moral diversity: the moral failures of health care in the welfare state H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr; Citizenship and social policy: T. H. Marshall and poverty Lawrence M. Mead; Identity politics and the welfare state Alan Wolfe and Jytte Klausen; The problem of forfeiture in the welfare state Richard A. Epstein.