Table Of ContentWelfare States and the Future
Also by B. Vivekanandan
AS THE MIND UNFOLDS: Issues and Personalities (editor)
BUILDING ON SOLIDARITY: Social Democracy and the New Millennium (editor)
CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM: An Analysis (co-editor)
ECHOES IN PARLIAMENT: Madhu Dandavate’s Speeches, 1971–1990 (editor)
CONTEMPORARY EUROPE AND SOUTH ASIA (co-editor)
INDIA LOOKS AHEAD: Jayaprakash Narayan Memorial Lectures, 1990–2001 (editor)
INTERNATIONAL CONCERNS OF EUROPEAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS
PATHFINDERS: Social Democrats of Scandinavia
THE ISSUES OF OUR TIMES (editor)
THE MODERN COMMONWEALTH
THE SHRINKING CIRCLE: The Commonwealth in British Foreign Policy, 1945–1974
IN RETROSPECT: Reflections on Select Issues in World Politics, 1975–2000
Also by Nimmi Kurian
THE HIGH NOON: Anglo–American Special Relationship under Thatcher and Reagan
EMERGING CHINA AND INDIA’S POLICY OPTIONS
Welfare States and
the Future
Edited by
B. Vivekanandan
Professor of European Studies
School of International Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi, India
and
Nimmi Kurian
Associate Research Professor
Centre for Policy Research
New Delhi, India
Editorial matter and selection © B.Vivekanandan and Nimmi Kurian 2005
Foreword © George Fernandes 2005
Individual chapters © contributors 2005
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-4364-4
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First published 2005 by
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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Welfare states and the future / edited by B.Vivekanandan and
Nimmi Kurian.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Welfare state. 2. Welfare state – Cross-cultural studies.
I. Vivekanandan,B. II. Kurian,Nimmi.
HB846.W444 2004
330.12¢6 – dc22 2004054465
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05
To Vimala Vivekanandan
The Light That Illumines Our Home
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Contents
Foreword by George Fernandes ix
Preface xiv
Notes on the Contributors xvii
1 Introduction: Welfare States and the Future 1
B. Vivekanandan and Nimmi Kurian
2 Welfare States in Perspective 14
Pradip Bose
3 Economic Foundations of Welfare State Systems 20
Sandwip Kumar Das
4 A World Economy Based on the Welfare State Principle 41
Hartmut Elsenhans
5 Globalization and Welfare States 62
Ramesh Mishra
6 The British Welfare State: Development and Challenges 78
Tom Burden
7 The Welfare State System in France 97
Sophie Nadal
8 The Welfare State in Postwar Germany 113
Lutz Leisering
9 The Welfare State in Austria 131
Emmerich Talos and Marcel Fink
10 The Swedish Welfare State and New Challenges 151
Nimmi Kurian
11 Political Economy of the Finnish Welfare State 161
Jukka Pekkarinen
12 Challenges Facing the Danish Welfare State 178
Jørn Henrik Petersen
13 Modernization of the European Model of Social Protection 199
Joakim Palme
vii
viii Contents
14 Recent Welfare Reforms in the United States 223
Asha Gupta
15 Canada’s Changing Welfare State 237
B. Vivekanandan
16 Welfare Designs and Peripheral Realities: The Brazilian Dilemma 272
Dilip Loundo
17 South Africa: Reflections on Establishing a Welfare State 297
Albert J. Venter
18 The Welfare State in Japan and China: Development and
Challenges 317
Christian Aspalter
19 The Welfare State System in India 336
Anand Kumar
Bibliography 364
Index 372
Foreword
Nineteen outstanding scholars from 11 countries and four continents, all of
them social scientists of international repute, have authored this book edited
by Professor B. Vivekanandan and Dr Nimmi Kurian. It is a significant piece
of work which provides a unique high-quality international assessment of
the present state and future prospects of welfare states of 14 countries of
Asia, Africa, Europe, America and Latin America. The title of the book –
Welfare States and the Future – raises an alarm which gets echoed in every
chapter of the book and in the Preface and Introduction by the editors.
The concerns of the authors and editors are partly rooted in the global-
ization and liberalization processes born out of the Uruguay Round which
was brought to a close with the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty, with the
developing countries coerced into signing on the dotted line. Aptly, Pro-
fessor Ramesh Mishra and Dr Joakim Palme introduce their chapters by
focusing on the challenges of globalization and liberalization to the welfare
state, especially its core element of a social protection scheme.
Pradip Bose in a perspectival analysis of the state of welfare states in the
world has come to the conclusion that ‘in recent times the concept of the
welfare state is being questioned from different angles and even being under-
mined in some countries’, and then goes on to add that ‘a situation where
the people who are used to obtaining social benefits and the governments,
committed to maximizing the benefits, now find themselves in a situation
where many of these benefits are not economically viable’. The key words
are ‘not economically viable’. The fact, however, is that the social benefit
schemes of the Western world, by and large, are in doldrums today.
The Western concept of the welfare state has meant helping working
people and other deprived people of their states through various pro-
grammes undertaken by the state and municipalities. Tom Burden in his
chapter has focused on the key phases of social policy development in the
UK and lists the laws enacted by Britain starting with the Poor Law Act of
1601. Whether it was new liberalism or the Keynesian welfare state or the
Beveridge reform or communitarianism, the point to be noted is that it was
the transfer of a small portion of the wealth generated by the working pop-
ulation, in the form of employers/employees contributions, in addition to
certain state/municipal taxes, that financed the social protection schemes.
Long before J.M. Keynes and William Beveridge developed their ideas of
welfare states, and perhaps around the time when the Swedish social demo-
cratic economists like Gustav Möller and Ernst Wiggfors were preparing the
layout of the welfare state scheme for Sweden, Mahatma Gandhi, a great
Indian, had clearly enunciated his concept of people’s welfare. At the height
ix
