Welfare or welfare state?

by David Marsland

The Welfare State is a failed Utopia. It is costly, inefficient and counterproductive. Governments everywhere are desperately seeking alternatives. Welfare or Welfare State? analyzes the deficiencies of state welfare: its muddled philosophy; its redundancy in an era of economic progress and prosperity; the extravagant costs of the Welfare State; the gross inefficiency arising from monopoly, bureaucracy and inhuman scale; and the destructive impact of universal state welfare on its clients, whom it drives in increasing numbers into underclass dependency. A practical programme of radical reform is proposed. The prosperous majority should opt out of state provision for education, health care, pensions and unemployment protection. They would be better served by self-reliance and the market. For the minority who cannot manage on their own, a new Special Assistance Programme should be instituted - its sole mission to restore them to self-reliance as quickly as possible.