Talk:Welfare state

The idea of "welfare"

If anything this article is biased in favor of the welfare state. See 'Arguments Against' and then a personal opinion attached to one of these arguments. That is really wild. thewolfstar

This article looks heavily biased against the idea of welfare state. Furthermore, why should it be kept separate from Social welfare? David.Monniaux 17:35, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The reason to keep it apart might be something like not confusing the European understanding of "Welfare" (when translated to English, that is) and the American meaning of the same word. ...or is it the US meaning, maybe? ...or have I got all wrong?

--Ruhrjung 21:02, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

One problem is that the concept of "welfare" does not really exist in some European countries! I cannot translate "welfare" into French. I can translate "welfare state", "social security", but welfare, per se... David.Monniaux 21:07, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

My opinion is that you in fr.wikipedia could have an article with the title "Welfare" to introduce francophone readers to the American usage. ;-)

It's surely not without reason that there yet are no interwiki links from Welfare.

--Ruhrjung 21:17, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

What is the American meaning for 'welfare'? It translates directly to finnish: 'Hyvinvointi', where 'Hyvin' in this context means 'comfortable/good' and 'vointi' means "the condition of health" or just "health". This is probably why the parts of the article edited by me used to have reference the antidepressants and (the lack of) mental health. I think "welfare state" as being a paradoxical expression in much the same way one could say "war is peace" or "slavery is freedom". Finlander 23:49, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

In American English, the literal meaning of "welfare" is equivalent to that of "well-being", but the connotation of "handouts" implicit in the idea of social welfare has come to dominate the literal meaning of the word. I hope that answers your question. Andrew Rodland 01:38, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Marc.Lévesque Note: I'm really not sure why David is claiming that there is no equivalent for the word "welfare" in french. Its actually "bien-être" which can be literally translated as "being-well" in english. No offense to the finnish language, but I think that the french and english notions of welfare (to fare well) and bien-être (being well) can be more evidently traced back to either greek or latin than finnish. We need a translator! (March, 2005)

In the US, the term "Welfare state" has very specific connotations. Translating connotation into another language isn't always possible. Would it help to modify the intro "Welfare state describes a nation... it is frequently used as a pejorative political term."? I think the pejorative label would definitely help non-native English speakers. Feco 01:54, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Welfare states

How many/what kind of social welfare programs are required before you can call a country a welfare state? Is there a more specific definition? Mdchachi|Talk 20:18, 24 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I think that Canada should also be included in the welfare states list.

In the last 13 years, Canada has been eroding its status as a welfare state. Jean Chrétien and the liberal governments of the recent past--and conceivably the Conservative government of today will continue this trend--have slowly been eroding away social programmes, cutting transfer payments to provinces, etc. This is not to say that it shouldn't be included, but it should be noted that Canada has been demonstrating a move away from various levels of support of the welfare state.

Comparative research on the welfare state (in particular the work of esping-andersen and many other researchers following on his line of argumentation) provided us with excellent typology to explain differences in welfare state development and also to understand the effects of these differences. I think that a reference to this literature would partially solve the problem of this article.

The important question is not so much whether their is a 'small' or a 'big' welfare state. What has to be taken into account is that the type and degree of government involvement in the provision differs. In particular these differences relate to the power-distribution and the prevalence of particular ideological views at certain critical moments when social security programs were adopted: States that had a strong presence of Social Democracy chose highly redistributive, universal social security measures (e.g. Sweden and other Scandinavian countries). Christian democratic political forces relied on measures that protect the income and status of the breadwinner (e.g. Germany, Italy...). In countries that had neither strong Social Democrats nor strong Christian Democrats tended to rely on lean state involvement providing basic social security nets and delegating the generation of welfare primarily to the market, private initiatives and families (e.g. USA).

Each welfare regime has particular effects (e.g. on social stratification or on the labour market). (1) The Social Democratic regimes due to the highly redistributive schemes do best in terms of reduction of inequality, this comes at the cost of high taxes. Because of the universality of the welfare system, international labour mobility (e.g. in the context of the Single European Market)causes problems. (2) The Christian Democratic regimes, although much money is transfered through the state, do not have the same equalizing effects than the universial regimes. Because welfare contributions and benefits mainly depend on the wage level, these transfer have status preserving effects. The strong protection of the (mostly male) breadwinner in the labour market has the problematic side-effect of higher levels of unemployment among the non-protected (mostly the young and to a certain degree also women). On the other hand, the high protection of the employees also incites them to invest in highly speicalized skills, which in turn has effects on the structure of the economy. (3) The liberal regimes have more or less neutral effects on social stratification: neither is inequality reduced nor does the state contribute to preserve the status of an individual. The labour market is characterized by high mobility and the individual is largely self-responsible for coping with social risks (illness, unemployment, old age...).

Arguments for and against the welfare state

I have attempted to balance this article by putting in a bullet-point list of arguments both for and against. This should offer contributors a basic structure for putting arguments on either side. Unfortunately, this insertion has been persistently vandalised. I ask contributors to watch the site and ensure the restoration of the balance whenever it is removed. Paul Spicker 1st December 2004.

It's not a matter of balance, since the disputed section does not add any POV; rather, it's an issue of whether or not a simplistic bullet-point list should be added. I believed it should not. However, I won't insist on the point if you really want the list to stay. It may cause a bit of confusion, but it doesn't do any serious harm to the article. I think we can declare this dispute closed. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 13:18, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you realize, but private healthcare in the US is pretty different from private healthcare in the rest of the world. For instance, around here, if someone falls, we don't CAT scan their heads. We also don't get sued really that much. Most of all, our health care system and insurances aren't as sturdily and heavily regulated as yours. So, if you want to make the argument that state-owned business is cheaper than private, you have to use another example, USA's won't do. Try Netherlands, for instance, where healthcare is done wholly private with private insurance companies, the coverage is 100% and they even have dental in it. Most of all, I think they teach in pretty much every economic school around here that private enterprise is cheaper than public. I believe this is pretty much an objective fact. --62.78.199.159 20:26, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Then I guess they don't teach about market failure in every economic school around there, do they? Privatized health care, in particular, often turns out to be a complete disaster due to the extreme inbalance of knowledge between buyer and seller (you don't know enough about medicine to be able to choose between the different treatments given by different doctors; in other words, the buyer of health care services cannot accurately determine the quality of the product he is buying). -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 12:15, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think that you have to be careful not to confuse the economic effects of high taxation and those of the welfare state. High income tax or corporation tax has a depressing effect on the economy whereas high land tax has a stimulating effect, so when you're talking about high levels of taxation it's important to describe which type of taxation you mean. However since this is article is about the Welfare state rather than taxation, it should be listing pros and cons of the welfare state, not of some unspecified form of taxation. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:52, 2004 Dec 8 (UTC)

In order to have a stable welfare state, you need money to provide for the welfare services, which is taken from citizens in the form of taxes. The tax code for welfare states is complex, since every industry that is nationalised has its own code. With each industry having their own tax, it would be difficult to explain which one has what, and impossible to do so in a bullet-point format. -- cold wolf 12:45, 8 December 2004 (UTC)

Of course you need the money. That's obvious. But you assume once again that the money must be taken from each citizen in the form of taxes (or insurance charges which amount to much the same thing). That does not have to be the case. The money can be raised in other ways which do not involve taxing citizens -- for instance resource taxes which are charges on resources rather than on citizens. -- Derek Ross | Talk 21:09, 2004 Dec 8 (UTC)

The problem with separating out arguments for and against in different sections is that it denies contributors the opportunity to counter arguments. I propose in consequence to revert to the previous layout, unless there are reasoned objections. Paul Spicker

In re: Paul Spicker's point above, is there a reason that the article should contain arguments and counter arguments? Isn't a phenomenological and historiographical article enough? Or, if you can't even write a phenomenological and historiographical article on the topic, why should you consider the attempt desirable, and yourselves qualified, to write a disputational article on the subject? Sorry if this sounds harsh, but the article isn't very good. It would be far better if historiography and phenomenology were covered more thoroughly before turning it into a disputation. Jeff Medkeff | Talk 15:36, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

Although I understand Jeff Medkeff's point, I don't think it's consistent with Open Source in practice. The content and balance of this article has been disputed by people occupying different political positions, and the article has been consistently prefaced by the NPOV symbol. Contentious arguments are constantly being inserted, deleted and re-inserted. Offering a structure for opposing arguments is the only effective way to achieve some balance. Paul Spicker

I have changed the wording of the Free market position under "Arguments Against" because it sounded akward, also it now more accuratley describes their position.- 67.169.170.140 05:23, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that the arguments for and against the welfare state should be in a separate article to the welfare state itself. After all, the article on the Industrial Revolution doesn't have a list of arguments in favour and against it? Okay so it's got a few paragraphs on Karl Marx's observations, followed by a link to Marxism, and then a link to the article on the Romantic movement. And that's it. Why does the article on the welfare state need to be any different?

I believe that the scope of each of the subjects is large enough to have two separate articles on it. Or maybe even three - a welfare state article, an arguments 'for' article, and an arguments 'against' article. An article can be a list of arguments in favour or against something, and still be NPOV. There's room for counter arguments in separate articles.

I also believe that separating the articles will reduce the vandalism. This is a subject that I think a lot of people feel quite strongly about, thanks to the inequalities of our divided society, and the suspicion people have that the grass is greener on the other side of that division. And when the arguments are dealt with in such a short, sharp, bullet-point format, I'm afraid it rubs people up the wrong way. Indeed, the very presence of bullet points might make some inexperienced people think that this is one of the subjects that Wikipedia doesn't care about, and would rather people didn't contribute on. I say create separate articles, get rid of the bullet points but turn their text into headers, and let people expand it naturally. Squashy 01:48, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Non-neutral

First off I am a full supporter of the welfare state and think its the best way of going about things, however, I've got to say that this is biased in favor of a welfare state. If you give the argument and evidence for the welfare state, you have to give the argument AND evidence against.

"Some states with extensive welfare programs are wealthy, active first-world states, while more often they tend to be impoverished third-world states".
IMO the article is still biased against the idea of a welfare state. Most states are impoverished third-world states anyway (I don't have any sources right here, but I could guesstimate that there are 30 wealthy countries, 50 in-between and 100 poor countries), and even so there are quite a few wealthy welfare states. Sabbut 07:03, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

It looks to me that the article is now biased heavily in favour of the welfare state (e.g. Many of the myths advanced in this paragraph are punctured by...), and possibly worse, it reads too much like an essay (littered with references where opinions are presented as fact). If anything these references should be at the bottom of the page, and linked to online sources (this is a web-based encyclopedia, after all), but it might be better if some of them were scrapped completely.

One of the problems with Wikipedia is reducing articles to "he said this, she said this", but where articles become "this is true because so-and-so said this" it shows why such a position is necessary. Someone looking up "welfare state" wants to know what it is, not to receive an argument one way or another. StuartH 06:58, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

As this page stands, it appears to be heavily biased in favor of welfare-statism, presenting schoolboy rebuttal (without even qualifying it by saying "advocates of the welfare state claim...") of grossly oversimplified arguments against welfare statism without presenting either the arguments or the facts that favor liberalism over the welfare state. I've given it the NPOV tag in the hope that somebody can come along and balance it out. - Bkalafut 05:36, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Ditto. - Jerryseinfeld 21:11, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Heavily biased in favour of the welfare state. It pains me to see Wikipedia suffer from a persistent left-wing bias. [Delsheol]

Welfare statism is not exclusively a left-wing phenomenon. Many right-wing regimes have developed welfare states - there are two examples much in the global news in recent months, and a major example in Europe in the mid 20th century that had global military repercussions. I think it is probably only from an American perspective (possibly shared by a few other western states) that welfare statism can be said to correlate with left-wing political ideas, since in these states there has long been a correlation between economic ideology and leftist political ideology; but this correlation is hardly inherent. It pains me to see Wikipedia suffer from persistent oversimplification in subjects pertaining to political and economic theory, and I suppose it is sentiments such as the above, with unacknowledged and questionable presuppositions, that lead to it.

This article is extremely biased in favour of the welfare state. There's a short bulleted list of vague arguments for and against, followed by what is clearly an opinion disguised as fact. I support the idea of a welfare state, but this isn't the place to be expressing one's personal opinions on a subject. If no one is able to properly balance out the "Arguments for and against the Welfare State" section, perhaps it should be scrapped altogether. --Azkar 19:54, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There is a problem of balance in this article. Arguments have been put on both sides. However, while the "grossly oversimplified" arguments against the welfare state (all made by previous contributors) are assertions made without any evidence, the rebuttals are backed up by citations and evidence. Someone recently went through these arguments removing the evidence for the welfare state, leaving only assertions against; it cannot be justifiable to replace evidence with mere assertion, and I reverted the previous version. But would it be more appropriate to delete all the arguments from "Ironically ..." onwards? Paul Spicker

As it stands, I think that's better than where we are. The article shouldn't be a debate about welfare states, with evidence being cited, etc. More appropriate would be a discussion of what each side thinks. Cite papers, etc, by supporters of each side, but don't have evidence supporting or arguing against the welfare state itself. --Azkar 06:01, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

European and anglo-saxon mindset diffs are irreconcible

>Yankees say welfare states make people lazy

Then what? As the world stands now the developed countries better get lazy. Less work, less pollution, stops the global warming. I really don't understand what the anglo-saxon race plans to do after they have finally managed to cover the entire planet knee-deep in DVD players and hamburgers.

The protestant mindset had made US people crazy work addicts, who despise the less fortunate. Europe is predominantly catholic and they don't think the meaning of life is to boost the economy, but rather the meaning of an economic system is to make life easier for all.

The idea of welfare state is deeply embedded in european history. In medieval villages the ill, elderly and lunatic or paupered people were cared for by the community. In contrast England made laws to hang the poor for no other reason but them being pennyless.

European people are pretty frightened by the coldness of the US ways of thinking, seeking law instead of truth and placing the individual over mankind. Look at the "solidarity" disambiguation page in en.wikpedia.org. The meaning of "caring for each other indiscriminately" is given just one single sentence, not even a stub article! The concept of solidarity is one of the most basic ideas in the history of human ethics, hundreds of volumes were written about it. English Wiki doesn't care a damn. Solidarity led to the establishment of welfare states rather than economic considerations!

I think US people are really hopeless. But lets make a scenario: pacific coast is razored by a 8.5 earthquake, 125,000 dead, 500,000 maimed, 5 million homeless. May happen any minute (in fact long overdue as there is a big active fault line idling for 100 years there). What should happen to these people? Based on what the US wiki editors' contributions suggest, these people should all be gunned down as they can't afford their food, housing and medicare any more and they are just burden on the society. Not to mention 90% of L.A. and S.F. are sodomites who fornicate beastly and desecrate the human body so it was well-deserved Sodoma and Gomorrah for them...thinks the mid-West.

User:195.70.48.242 14:14, 11 Feb 2005

If Catholicism is so universally egalitarian, how does this explain Brazil where poor people are regularly killed by police sqauds (admitedly unlawfully) for being so? I agree that Catholics are *generally* more egalitarian than Protestants though. matturn 12:08, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Anglo-Saxon? Protestants?

What a load of old rubbish! People are always spewing out this sort of stuff. What does anglo-saxon even mean? Do you mean English-speaking? What about Britain, just look at the list in article, the UK spends substantially more than the catholic Spain. Canada has a fairly well-developed welfare system. What's all this stuff about protestantism. Germany was the birthplace of the protestant movement and they spend loads on welfare. Brazil is an overwhelmingly catholic country and is also has the worst inequality in the world.

Just because the US has an antipathy to policies which they see as "socialist", does not mean that all protestant or "anglo-saxon" (which i presume means english-speaking) countries don't have good welfare systems.

The difference between the US and Europe is not some deep divide based on religion/ or ethnic group (the vast majority of Americans are NOT descended from the British). The main difference is history.

The welfare state has a lot to do with the class system. Europeans could see that poverty wasn't due to laziness or lack of ability, when people were institutionally prevented from breaking out of the boundaries of their class; and this was as true in republican and supposedly egalitarian France as it was in class-ridden monarchist Britain. That is what led to movements like the British Labour party who were responsible for creating much of Britain's modern welfare state.

PS the socialist and progressive movement in Britain, as in many countries was dominated by non-conformists (protestants); catholic parties have tended to be much more conservative.

If the vast majority of US people aren't UK decendents, where are their ancestors from? I thought the majority of US people were primarily decendent from Northern European (aka Celto-Germanic) (which is what people generally mean by Anglo-Saxon) places like the modern UK, Republic of Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, northern France, The Netherlands etc. Mind you not all Anglo-Saxon people there are Protestant, Austria being a good example. matturn 12:08, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, a large part of the US population are descended from Northern Europeans. What I objected to is the lazy use of the rem Anglo-Saxon- the Angles and the Saxons were two tribes from Northern Germany who arrived in Britain in around the 5th Century AD and soon became known as the English. The term is often used to describe wither the English, the British or English speakers. This term doesn't describe the Irish, who describe themselves as Celts, culturally distinct from the British. The term certainly doesn't include the Scandanavia, France or even Germany. Less than 20% of Americans trace their ancestry back to British settlers, so talking about "Anglo-Saxon mindsets" as if the US and the UK were part of some unified culture is a bit silly. The US could just have easily been Dutch, German or French speaking if history had gone slightly differently.

Anglo-Saxon can be used to describe at least some Germans and Danes, given that that's where the Angles and Saxons (and closely related Jutes) came from :-) Note also that "British" does include many people that considered themselves Celts (or something equating with that) - Scots, Welsh, some Ulstermen (aka Scots-Irish), some Cornish and for a long time Protestant Irish too. "British" is not a synonym for "English". For that matter, the English of the 1500's-1950's weren't even completely Anglo-Saxon, they had strong streaks of Celtic, Viking (aka Germanic) and Norman (Celto-Germanic French) blood in them as well. Anglo-Saxon has long been a synonym for English and later British people and culture. The culture at least *did* become dominant in the thirteen colonies before they became independent. Only one US President didn't have English as their first language, but even he spoke it well. Today, all the countries in the world with the most cultural simularity to the US are cultural decendants of the UK. matturn 13:47, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Boy 195.70.48.242, your last para shows you really are clueless about internal US politics. Ever hear of disaster relief? Particularly since disasters obviously *take away* existing means and possessions, while welfare tends to give from those who earned it to those who never had it in the first place. As for the sodomy assertion, suffice to say it would be as random as saying 90% of Dutch are brain damaged drug addicts in favor of euthanizing themselves.

Finally, Americans are just as interested in truth as anyone else, and many simply believe that the best path to taking care of mankind is, to the best of society's ability, enable the individual to take care of himself. Based on the success of industrialized capitalist societies (welfare states or not), one would be hard pressed to deny that history lends credence to the belief. --66.171.5.104 22:26, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, I recall one oft-quoted study of the economic success of Protestant Flemish vs that of Catholic Walloons in Belgium. Protestant people are generally wealthier than Catholic ones, for a number of possible reasons. matturn 12:30, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

slightly biased?

why do i now feel like all the worlds governments should become a welfare state?

I fully support a welfare state, and I don't find anything in this article biased particularly for or against the idea. It's done quite soberly and emotionlessly, really. Honestly, if there was a larger section AGAINST a welfare state in it, it probably wouldn't tip the scales as far as I'm concerned.

Revamped article

I went ahead and posted a redid article that I made. I took off the cleanup and neutraliy thing because I claim to be completely and totally unbiased- not really, but I really don't care about welfare states, so that's my claim to be unbiased. If you don't like it, I can't stop you from mutilating it, but with all due humility, I think that it is better than it was before.

Why did you revert it?--Alkafett 11:18, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You posted your proposed revision yesterday (16th May) and have not allowed time for discussion. I reverted the article because the amendments were in every sense inferior to the article they replaced. First, your revision substituted a particular view of the welfare state for three alternative views. Second, it removed most arguments both for and against the welfare state. Third, it eliminated links and references. Paul Spicker

Where exactly is the problem?

The only problem I see with the article is the quite poor for and against list. The rest of the article seems to be simply a description of welfare states, and as such is NPOV. What I would suggest is the simple removal of the for/against section, and leave the rest as is.

Christianity can be pro/con Welfare state

It´s strange to give Christian arguements against the welfare state, I think most Christians believe that helping the needy is a prime virtue, both individually and collectively.

Jesus himself was definately a socialist bloke. The early church operated as a welfare state. It's just that most Christians prefer to listen to their preachers & lay leaders and their selected verses than to read the New Testament cover-to-cover. matturn 12:17, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The British Labour Party and Religion

If you look at the history of British socialism and at the Labour party in particular (though Tony Blair has stripped it of a lot of its socialist principles) you find religion played a huge part. Non-conformists, methodists- these were the people who pushed for an end to child labour, better working conditions and universal suffrage in the 19th Century and pushed for a modern Welfare state in the 20th Century.

People will interpret things to suit themselves- therefore a metodist like George W Bush can think Welfarism is somehow evil and that charity should only exist on a personal level; and another methodist will think it his or her christian duty to make a society with instituions which support the poor and vulnerable.

Mr Bush would not have got along well with Mr Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Just as Jesus would strongly rebuke most Christians in western countries if he came back tomorrow... matturn 12:17, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

John Maynard Keynes

I realize I need to do some reading on this subject, but I was expecting to find some mention of John Maynard Keynes, Keynesian economics or Keynesian Welfare State in this article. Is the article flawed in this respect, or is it me who is ignorant?--Ezeu 01:13, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it could do with some Keynes. Go on, add some :-) matturn 12:18, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Why does the US spend so much on welfare but is widely considered not to have welfare?

Hi,

I'm not an economist. I'm trying to educate myself as to the benefits and dangers of welfare. From reading the news especially opinion pieces in the BBC I get the impression that the US has no welfare system at all and leaves poor people to be poor etc. However I see in the list that the US spends quite a lot (among the highest) on welfare. Why the discrepancey, could the article address this ?

thanks -kghose

The premise in your question is mistaken. If you look at the table in the article, which comes from OECD figures, you will see that the USA spends less proportionately on social expenditure than nearly all other OECD countries, and less absolutely than many. The system in the US is highly decentralised, and different rules apply in different states. Beyond that, such expenditure as there is not effectively spent. Supporting health care in a largely marketised system, which the USA does for elderly people, people on low incomes and psychiatric patients, is much more expensive than it is in non-market systems.

Most welfare "systems" have a range of different support networks. Many welfare systems offer support to people with established records of work and contribution, but support for people on low incomes is mixed. The system in the UK has good coverage but leaves a "poverty gap", or shortfall between support and minimum income standards. Germany - the world's top exporting economy - has nominally better coverage than the UK but a higher poverty gap for those who are not covered. The US performs particularly badly both in terms of coverage and the poverty gap.

PS

So the metric used is not the expenditure per person, but the percentage of GDP. Why is this considered a good measure ? Where does welfare spending in the US go, dole, healthcare etc. where would I find the break up

thanks -kg

Note that in Australia, it's relatively difficult to be destitute. It requires an addiction to something (like drugs or gambling), an inability to get cheap accomidation, an inability/choice to follow a few social norms (usually due to mental illness), or a choice to live in very remote places (usually because your family has for thousands of years). It really is a great country.