• What is the welfare state?
• Origin of the welfare state
• Characteristics of the welfare state
• Social models of the welfare state
• Welfare state crisis

We explain what the welfare state is, its origin, characteristics and models in different countries. Also, how it entered into crisis.

In the welfare state, the state provides basic services.

What is the welfare state?

In Political Sciences, we speak of welfare state or welfare state, as well as providential state or welfare state, to refer to a model general of state administration, according to which the latter must provide the inhabitants of a country with basic services, in compliance with the social rights of citizenship.

In other words, the welfare state is a socio-political and economic model that starts from the idea of social justice. That is to say, it points out that the Condition handle the rules of the game society, to ensure that the least amount of citizens are deprived of their minimum fundamental rights.

His defenders see him as the best combat model of the poverty and the inequality, through the democratic exercise of state power committed to the quality of life of the persons. On the other hand, it is highly criticized by the most liberal sectors of society, who interpret it as an unfair model, which takes away the productive sectors to give to the unproductive ones.

In principle, the welfare state is understood as "the passage from social security only for a few, to social security for all citizens": that is, the right to pensions, health care, protection against unemployment , to the education, the culture and the public services (electricity, Water, gas).

Origin of the welfare state

The term "welfare state" comes from a literal translation from English Welfare state, used by the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple in 1945, at the end of the WWII. With the term Welfare, sought to oppose Keynesian economic policies to the so-called “state of war” (Warfare state) carried on by Nazi Germany.

However, before there was talk of the need for a model that would improve the living conditions of the population. Especially during the 19th century, when the labor movements of the Europe western led the governments to legislate in their favor, guaranteeing the minimally acceptable conditions of life of the working class.

East objective has been achieved very partially, in part due to the advent of dictatorships reactionaries of the mid-twentieth century. However, the influence of the socialist and reformist movements, as well as the liberal and Christian social movements, together with the trade union forces, succeeded after the Second World War in imposing much more benevolent socioeconomic conditions, which would come to be called “the golden age of the capitalism”.

However, there are debates regarding which economic recipe accompanied such an emergence of the welfare state. Some advocate Keynesianism, others ordoliberalism, and some point out the similarities between the two philosophies.

Characteristics of the welfare state

The welfare state offered more dignified working conditions.

The welfare state was characterized by:

• He managed to harmonize the tensions inherent to the capitalist system, through an administration aimed at solving poverty, inequality, the discrimination, unemployment, modern forms of slavery, the war and criminal cruelty.
• He deepened the democracy through the recognition of the rights and needs of many traditionally marginalized sectors of the working class.
• It confirmed to the State a more active economic role, in order to obtain social welfare and economic growth.
• He dismissed the need for war, promoting internal commercial exchange as a necessity in the Europe then.

Social models of the welfare state

The welfare state is a concept that was not achieved in the same way everywhere, but spawned various social models, throughout Europe, that traditionally oppose the liberal American model. It could even be said that there are many possible states of well-being, such as:

• The Nordic model. Carried out by Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Finland and the Netherlands. This model was possible thanks to the relative cultural homogeneity of the northern Scandinavian peoples, and its pillars are the financing by collecting taxes, high standards of investment public and social universalism.
• The continental model. Carried out in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg. Very similar to the Nordic one, but with a greater orientation to the payment of pensions, it is based on assistance and social security, partially subsidized by the State.
• The Anglo-Saxon model. Developed in Ireland and the United Kingdom. With fewer preventive measures and a last resort assistance model, it directs the greatest amount of subsidies to the working class of working age, and to a lesser extent towards pensions. It is considered one of the most efficient, after the Nordic, in reducing poverty and combating unemployment.
• The Mediterranean model. Own of Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal. This model was achieved later than the rest (between the 70s and 80s), and consists of a greater investment in pensions, with very low social assistance expenses, for a population that presents a great social segmentation, and whose work receives more protection than their own workers.

Welfare state crisis

Towards the end of the 20th century, the welfare state entered into crisis and was gradually replaced by the neoliberalism. This new model was dismantling the previous system and strongly liberalizing societies, especially in Latin America and the Third world.

These changes were proposed to solve the financing difficulties of a welfare model through privatization, the reduction of the State and public spending, to allow the action of the “invisible hand of the market”.

Initially, immediate advances were made under Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in England, to name two of its great defenders. However, the effects of neoliberalism contradicted what was expected in the long run.

Its result was an increase in debt and generating a greater impoverishment of society, especially in Latin America. It is estimated that the world economic growth rate, which was around 3% per year between 1950 and 1973, has been reduced thereafter (1973-2000) to less than 1.5% per year.

In 2010 the International Monetary Fund published figures that, for many, prove that the effects of the change in model produced a slowdown in world economic growth, with the notorious exception of the Asian continent, especially China.