Double Standard: Social Policy in Europe and the United States

208 Pages·2010·0.92 MB·English

by  James W. Russell

Double Standard
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PRAISE FOR DOUBLE STANDARD
“In this closely argued, detailed, and meticulous book, James W. Russell
compares the development of social policies in the United States and in
European states, pointing out areas where there are significant differences
of approach but also those where one has borrowed from another. The
strong historical and philosophical basis for Russell’s analysis continues
to make this a novel, engaging, and challenging addition to the com-
parative literature and an important source book for scholars of the U.S.
welfare system.” —Gary Craig, professor emeritus, University of Hull,
United Kingdom
“Double Standard is accessible, responsible, historically minded, and clas-
sically informed comparative social policy and political sociology. One
can only hope others take Russell’s example of how to write and do the
social sciences. While capturing nuanced differences among European
countries, this updated Double Standard shows students and scholars the
main areas of difference between European approaches to social inclusion
and American individualism.” —Robert J. S. Ross, Clark University
PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION
“James Russell restores my faith in sociology as the best line of inquiry
into nagging political questions that too often get assigned to narrow-
minded economists. We need books like this to combat academic provin-
cialism as much as to correct social inequality.” —John R. MacArthur,
publisher of Harper’s Magazine and author of The Selling of Free Trade
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Double Standard
Social Policy in Europe
and the United States
Second Edition
James W. Russell
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham (cid:129) Boulder (cid:129) New York (cid:129) Toronto (cid:129) Plymouth, UK
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Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com
Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2011 by James W. Russell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer
who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Russell, James W., 1944–
Double standard : social policy in Europe and the United States / James W.
Russell.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4422-0657-1 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-4422-0658-8 (pbk. : alk.
paper)— ISBN 978-1-4422-0659-5 (electronic)
1. Social policy—Comparative method. 2. Europe—Social policy. 3. United
States—Social policy. 4. Social policy—History. I. Title.
HN28.R87 2011
320.6094—dc22
2010021238
(cid:2)
™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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Contents
Note to the Second Edition vii
Preface ix
1 Introduction: From Social Problems to Social Policies 1
2 The Social Worldview of Medieval Christianity as Prologue 7
3 Secular Transitions and Assumptions 13
4 Marx, Durkheim, and the Limits of Laissez-Faire Capitalism 25
5 From Theory to Ideology 35
6 The Origins of Social Policy in Europe and the United States 43
7 Alternative Approaches to Social Policy 53
8 Social Cohesion and Inequality 63
9 Poverty 75
10 Unemployment: The Sword of Damocles 87
11 Support for Child Raising 103
12 Support for the Aged 115
13 Health Care 123
14 Ethnic and Racial Policy 133
v
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vi Contents
15 Incarceration as Social Policy 149
16 Summary: Principles for Progressive Social Policy 153
Afterword: Social Impacts of the Great Recession in Europe
and the United States 159
Notes 163
Bibliography 177
Index 185
About the Author 195
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Note to the
Second Edition
The first edition came out in late 2006, before the 2008 presidential
campaign in the United States, the beginning of the Great Recession,
and the passage of health reform. All three bore on the central theses and
concerns of the book.
European social versus American free-market capitalism emerged as
a background theme of the presidential campaign. Republicans accused
the Democrats of having a socialist agenda, by which they meant adopt-
ing European-style reforms. Hedzig Herzman, writing in the New Yorker,
captured the Republican insinuations: “The dystopia [John McCain] ab-
hors is not some North Korean–style totalitarian ant heap but, rather, the
gentle social democracies across the Atlantic, where, in return for higher
taxes and without any diminution of civil liberty, people buy themselves
excellent public education, anxiety-free health care, and decent public
transportation.”1 But rather than defending the idea that there might be
something useful to be learned from European experiences with similar
problems, the Democrats defensively denied any such intentions. In a
kind of “Who, me?” reaction, they denied being Europhiles and certainly
denied being guilty of being socialists.
Democrats knew the political lessons of American exceptionalism.
Never admit to looking to other countries for ideas on how to reform
your own. It is an attitude that has cost the United States dearly in social
progress. It relies on keeping substantial parts of the public believing
that they have the best possible living standard in the world, when they
do not.
vii
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viii Note to the Second Edition
At the same time, those who work in policy studies routinely look to
the experiences of other countries for ideas. They know that other coun-
tries have more successfully addressed a number of central social prob-
lems that continue to plague the United States. This book is an example.
When the Great Recession hit (see the new afterword for this edition),
a few writers such as Paul Krugman in the New York Times looked at how
Europeans were coping, compared to Americans, given their much more
developed social safety nets. But most did not.
The contentious national debate over health care could not avoid some
references to European and Canadian experiences at successfully insur-
ing their whole populations at lower costs. But as the bills developed,
American exceptionalism seemed to dominate discourse: Americans
would solve—or not solve—it in their own way. The results of that effort
are described and analyzed in chapter 13. Suffice it to say for now that
even when health reform is fully implemented, the American system will
still pale in comparison to European ones in terms of coverage, costs, and
outcomes.
I have updated this edition with the latest available statistical information.
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Preface
Americans would have been stunned by the headline in a Spanish
newspaper: “Government Wants to Convert Assistance to Depen-
dent Persons into the Fourth Pillar of the Welfare State.”1 At a time when
entitlement programs had long been in the crosshairs of American public
policy, with both the Democratic and Republican parties attacking them
as wasteful, unaffordable, and ill conceived, the government of Spain, a
country in the second rank of European prosperity, was precisely intend-
ing to build an entirely new major one. More revealing still was that the
newspaper used the concept “welfare state” as a noncontroversial fact of
life, unlike in the United States where it connotes a negative state of af-
fairs to be avoided at all costs.
Americans have been trained to shudder at the very idea of a welfare
state. As individualists, they find the thought of accepting public assis-
tance repugnant, a sign of failure. Europeans, on the contrary, view a wel-
fare state as being a benefit to all members of society. Middle- as well as
lower-class persons benefit from free health care, and everyone benefits if
the welfare state insures social cohesion and peace in the population. The
U.S. abhorrence of developing an extensive welfare state is directly related
to its having the highest murder and crime rates in the western world.
Instead of investing in a welfare state, it invests in a prison system, with
the result being that it now has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
European social programs provide safety nets so that downturns in eco-
nomic life, such as unemployment, or in physical life, such as accidents and
sickness, are not economically ruinous. But if Europe finds virtue in gov-
ernment programs providing basic social security, the United States finds it
ix
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