第６章 B From "Welfare State" to "Welfare World"
Paper presented to
27th ICSW International Conference
July
29-August 3, 1996, Hong Kong
Abstract
In the 20th Century most democratic industrialized countries have strived to be
a "welfare state". Social policy planners, including
politicians, scholars (if referred British models, Beveridge, Titmuss, T. H.
Marshall, Tawney and others) contributed and invented tools. Those are social security system, social insurance and
public assistance; social services in health, housing, education, personal
social service, often with positive discrimination; full-employment policy;
redistribution policy by inheritance tax and progressive income tax; and
workers protection law etc. .
The root of the "welfare state" is to eliminate absolute poverty of
its nation at least. We have succeeded in it to some extent in the
developed countries. Despite many problems and dissatisfaction remains,
basic orientation to "welfare state" survived.
But when we turn to global situation, states which can be called by the name
are still minor. There remains enormous (more than one billion) absolute
poverty on the earth. When the welfare state idea is extended, a
definition of "welfare world" must be that every people who is born
on the earth has a right to live minimum meaningful life (world citizenship).
We must mobilize our idea and tactics to make "welfare world" to be
realized in the 21st century, as we have succeeded in to establish
"welfare state" in the 20th century. We must invent new world
social policy. It will largely confront to world economic policy, and one
of the most important points will be to control multinational corporations.
Most urgent problems or even crises which humankind faces today could be
summarized as 3W: Want (starving, absolute poverty and population explosion); Waste
(earth scale destruction of environment); War (crazy killings and refugees
discharge). Those are all closely interrelated. We must attack them
simultaneously and systematically.
The models invented so far are models mainly applicable to industrialized
countries. They can not be applied directly to the developing or
under-developed countries. And when thinking about the capacity of earth,
it may be impossible for all nations to develop life styles at the same level
as present developed countries enjoy. We might have to change our
approaches to social development drastically. Some developed countries
might have to lower their standards of living in several critical
respects. We must understand and respect each others diversity and learn
to coexist. People have rights to live in their own culture
peacefully. We must secure a safe earth environment cohabiting with other
creatures too.
Strategically and logically, if each country became a "welfare
state", a "welfare world" can be simply and readily
established. But even within the United Nations, there are many
oppressive non-democratic governments, so it is not realistic to expect too
much from state initiatives. There must also be roles and tasks of NGOs
in the context of a more internationally cooperative civil society.
Emerging "information society" offers some grounds for optimism in
this respect.
1, Achievement of "Welfare State"
(Policy
Models)
Throughout the 20th Century most of the democratic industrialized countries
have strived to become "welfare states". Social policy
planners, including politicians, scholars (if referred British models,
Beveridge, titmuss, T. H. Marshall, Tawney and others) have contributed towards
the achievement of these goals. Beveridge developed an integrated social
security plan consisting of social insurance and public assistance.
Tawney and Titmuss emphasized the role of redistribution policies through
social services and the tax system. And T. H. Marshall explained the
development of the Welfare State in terms of the growth of citizenship i. e.
welfare statism consisting of a combination of factors: democracy in the
political sector; a mixed economy in the economic sector; a welfare society in
the social sector.
Models which are invented could be summarized as follows: the social security
system, mainly consist of social insurance and public assistance; the social
services in health, housing, education, personal social service, sometimes with
forms of positive discrimination; full-employment policy; redistribution policy
through the use of inheritance taxes and progressive income taxes; as well as
workers protection law etc. .
(The
case of Japan)
These models have most relevance to the western industrialized counties often with
strong labor movements, including Japan. In the Introduction to his
Japanese translation of William Beveridge`s autobiography Power and
Influence, 1953, Mr. Hideo Ide, who was high commissioner of the Ministry
of Welfare, wrote that `the Recommendation of Social Security Council of 1950
was may be the country which was most influenced by the Beveridge Plan`.
The growth of the welfare state contributed greatly to the postwar political
stability therefore economic development of Japan.
(Survival
of Welfare State Ideal: Defense of Welfare Statism)
One definition of the welfare state is that it expresses a commitment to
guaranteeing certain basic levels of provision as aright of citizenship and as
a connective obligation that must be met. This definition does not
preclude the possibility of guaranteeing needs above the minimum but
elimination of absolute poverty is seen as the essential firs step.
T. H. Marshall described the aims of social policy by reference to three
concepts most likely command a national consensus: the elimination of poverty;
the maximization of welfare; and pursuit of equality. Poverty, for
Marshall, was synonymous with absolute poverty.
Throughout las five decades there have been a number of policy innovations such
as the new liberalism, privatization, pluralism and community care etc. .
Some of which have challenged the traditional concepts of a unitary welfare
state. There have also been new challenges such as increase in the
incidence of unemployment and homelessness which have caused new demands for
social resources. Nevertheless, the basic commitment to the welfare state
was not changed and its basic frameworks have survived.
2, From "Welfare State" to "Welfare World"
(Ansolute
poverty on a global scale)
But when we turn to the global situation, there is far less evidence of a
commitment to welfare statism. There remains enormous absolute poverty on
the earth. The Pre-Conference Report of UN World Summit 1995 makes
the following points:
The 1.3 billion absolute poor live in conditions that Robert S. McNamara,
president of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981, described in 1978 as so limited
by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant
mortality, and low life expectancy as to the beneath any reasonable definition
of human decency`.
Among all people, 1.5 billion have no source of clean drinking water or access
to sanitation. Most go to bed hungry.
They are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters such as drought, floods
and storms, having little or no margin for survival when their housing,
possessions and means of production are destroyed.
Out of the world labor force of 2.8 billion, there are 120 million people who
are actively looking for work, but without result.
The vast majority of absolute poor 700 million people are classified as
under-employed, working long hours, often at backbreaking jobs that don't come
close to covering their most basic needs. A startlingly disproportionate
number of these people are women. The largest number of poor people about
half of the total eke out existences in the countries of South Asia. One
quarter live in East Asia.
Eighty percent of the poor live in rural areas, with the great majority in Asia
and Africa. But the rural poor are mostly landless, or have farms that
are too small to yield adequate income.
Extreme poverty is most concentrated in Africa, particularly in the band of
countries south of Sahara Desert. Africa has 16 percent of the world's
total but fully half of all Africans are impoverished.
Peter Townsend explained present world poverty situation in his lecture at the Shukutoku University, Tokyo, November 1995 ("Global Poverty: Is the Problem Becoming Impossible to Solve?"). He summarizes his lecture as follows:
At the copenhagen summit the signatories agreed to draw up national plans to eliminate "absolute" and diminish "over all" poverty. Despite successive economic reform programs advocated and applied since the 1960s, the increasing number of governments, NGOs and scientists believe that: serious problems not only remain, but are getting worse. This paper calls attention to the fundamental contemporary global problems of social polarization. There is an undeniable trend within many countries as well as between rich and poor countries for inequality to widen and poverty to worsen. This paper attempt to explain how inequality, and poverty, within countries is related to inequality between countries. First, avoidance of scientific or international measure of poverty has not server international community. Second, irresolute comparative analysis of conditions in unstable as well as stable regions of the world is leading to misplaced theory and social development policies. World Bank stratifies, for example, are not really derived from hard-headed analysis of the reasons for continuing, and even deepening, mass poverty. Finally, the chief problem is a refusal on the part of governments and international agencies to face up to the international hierarchy of power and to address the dominant structural problems not only of the labour market but multinational corporate power, international organization and democratic expression.
(Idea
of "Welfare World" and its necessity)
When the "welfare state" idea is extended to a definition of
"Welfare World" (Gnnar Myrdal proposed the term in 1960) it must be
taken to imply that every person who is born on the earth has a right to enjoy
a minimum level of guaranteed subsistence (world citizenship).
There will be at least two factors relevant to the creation of welfare world: ethical motives and the process of globalization.
(An
ethical motive; social conscience [Beveridge])
William Beveridge who planned the social security scheme which is the core of
the welfare state system mentioned in his third report, Voluntary Action 1948,
that:
(the motive) springs from what is described in my report on Social Insurance as social conscience, the feeling which makes men who are material comfortable, mentally uncomfortable so long as their neighbours are materially uncomfortable: to have social conscience is to be unwilling to make separate peace with the giant social evils of Want, Disease, Squalor, Ignorance, Idleness, escaping into personal prosperity oneself, while leaving one's fellows in their clutches (p. 9).
It is necessary to extend the cosensus of our social conscience to the whole world.
(The
fact of globalization)
Gunnar Myrdal mentioned in his book Beyond the Welfare State, which was
published in 1960, as follows.
As regards international relation, national economic planning has not had effects in line with those ideals [liberty, equality, and brotherhood]. The Welfare State is nationalistic. Internationally the ideals of liberty, equality, and brotherhood can be attained only by a political development towards a Welfare World, which would imply rather fundamental changes in the trend towards economic planning, in the individual countries (p. 16, underline is mine).
The deeper reason for economic nationalism is that the growth and further development of the Welfare State are apt to build up a human solidarity that stop short at the national boundary (p. 179).
I stated therefore as an inference from analysis, and not simply valuation the thesis that once the Welfare State has come into existence in the rich Western countries and once the underdeveloped countries are becoming independent and are launching upon individual national economic policies in the interest of their national development, there is, as a matter of fact, no alternative to continue international economic disintegration, except to strive for a Welfare World (pp. 265-6, underline is mine).
Ralf Dahrendorf described the emerging trends of the new forms of capitalism
and the new threat to civil society. He asked whether democracies can
cope with the new ca;italism. (Ralf Dahrendorf: "Preserving
Prosperity" New Statesman & Society 15/29 December 1995, pp.
36-41)
After analysisng the present situation, he concludes that:
Economic globalization appeared to be associated with new kind of social
exclusion. For one thing, income inequalities have grown. ……Inequality
can be a source of hope and progress in an environment that is sufficiently
open to enable people to make good and improve their life chances by their own
efforts. ……The new inequality, however, is of different kind; it would be
better described as inequalisation, the opposite of levelling, building paths
to top for some digging holes for others, creating cleavage, splitting.
Income of the top 20 percent is rising significantly, whereas a bottom 40
percent see their earnings decline. ……
The process aggravated by the fact that a smaller but significant set seems to
have fall through the net of citizenship altogether. ……The socially
excluded (the underclass) are not a class; they are at most a category of
people who have many different life stories. Though some of them manage
to get out of the predicament, many are in a position in which they have
lost touch with the "official" world, with the labour market, the
political community, the wider society. ……most OECD countries now have in
their midst (5%-10%) would be citizens who are not citizens.
The new inequality the increasing divergence of those near the top and those near the bottom takes us back to the low pay high skill option. those whose skill are needed are paid a good salary, but many who had a reasonable wage ore salary in the past have now sunk to miserable and often irregular real income. ……Indeed, some are simply not needed. The economy can grow without their contribution.
Add to such phenomena the return of Social Darwinism under the pressures of globalization, and the concoction becomes even more lethal. At times one detects strange similarities, at leas in Europe, between the end of 19th and end of the 20th centuries. Then, as now, people had been through a period of rampant individualism. Individuals were set against each other in fierce competition and the strongest prevailed, or rather those who prevailed were described as the strongest, whatever qualities had led them to their success. Then as now, there was a reaction. Around 1900, it was called collectivism. Today, the new vogue is called communitarianism.
Dahrendolf asks and analyses:
Why is there no massive movement to defend civil society? Where is the 20th century equivalent of the labour movement of the late 19th century? It does not, and will not, exist. For reasons that antedate the challenges of globalization, individualization has transformed not just civil society, but social conflicts too. Many people may suffer the same fate, but there is no unified and unifying explanation of their suffering, no enemy that can be fought and forced to give away. More importantly, and the worse still, the truly disadvantaged and those who fear to slide into their condition do not represent a new productive force, nor even a force to be reckoned with at present. The rich can get richer without them, governments can even get reelected without their votes; and GNP can rise and rise and rise.
Dahrendolf refers to Asian situations too and argues:
Is this, then the alternative with which modern societies are faced: economic growth and political freedom without social cohesion or economic growth and social cohesion without political freedom? Is there, after all, an alternative to the western model, equally viable, more attractive to some, though unacceptable to others? More and more people in OECD world think so. Many businessmen like the Asian model, and conservative politicians from Margaret Thacher to Silvio Berlusconi follow suit. Asia values have become the new temptation, and political authoritarianism with them. Economic progress can be conbined with social stability and conservative values, the argument goes.
Dahrendolf argues that `The welfare state needs to be reformed, which cannot be
done without hardship`, and asks `what can be done to preserve a civilized
balance of wealth creation, social cohesion and political freedom?`
He suggests six tentative solutions: Change in public economics language;
Nature of work; Underclass problem; Individualization and centralization; Local
power; Role of governments. But, his conclusion is finally one world.
This list leaves out many matters that need consideration. Above all, it leaves undecided the critical question of institutional ― one might almost say geopolitical ― response to the challenges of globalization. Regional blocs of some sort may well be where the world is heading. But if we are talking about prosperity for all, civil society everywhere, and political freedom wherever people live, in the end we are not concerned with privileged regions but with one world and its appropriate institutions (underline is mine).
3, World Social Policy
My contention in this paper is as follows. We must mobilize our ideas and
tactics to make a "welfare World" a reality in the 21st century, as
we have succeeded in establishing "Welfare State" in the 20th
century.
We must invent a new world social policy which aims at eliminating absolute
poverty in the world. When we think about the world situation, we must
not set ourselves unrealistic objectives in the short run. We must
confine the standard to the minimum essential needed to eliminate absolute
poverty.
A world social policy will require changes in world economic policies, and the
most important need will be to control multinational corporations.
(Three
problems or Crises of the world)
Most urgent problems and crises which humankind faces today could be summarize
under three categories: Want (starving, absolute poverty and population
explosion); Waste (earth scale destruction of environment); War (crazy killings
and refugees discharge). I shall call them 3 W's.
These 3W's are closely interrelated. Absolute poverty is often caused by
war, and war's basic cause is often absolute poverty. The environment
often suffers as a result of absolute poverty and war. The environmental
problem is most serious of them all as some forms of environmental destruction
may prove to be irrecoverable.
(need
of simultaneous attack)
Because these 3W problems are all closely interrelated, they must be addressed
simultaneously and systematically.
Authorities like Brian Burrows, Alan Mayne, Paul Newbury emphasized this point
strongly in their very persuasive book, Into the 21st Century: A Handbook
for a Sustainable Future, Adamantine Press, 1991.
They advocate systematic holistic thinking, and they finally present three
scenarios: Pessimistic; Piecemeal; Optimistic. They wrote in the
introduction as follows:
PART THREE examines the consequences of the alternative approaches to world problems in terms of three scenarios resulting from continued neglect, piecemeal solutions, or a holistic approach. It is shown that the holistic approach, together with an appropriate planet management system, is the only way in which we can hope to solve our growing man made problems. It is important to ACT NOW, because we can soon reach the point of no return. Our future existence depends on the very delicate interaction and balance of many factors; we have choice between changing our activities to preserve this balance or entering a catastrophic situation. We need our planet does not need us.
(New
thinking)
The models invented so far are models mainly for Western industrialized
country. They cannot be applied directly to the developing or under
developed countries.
When thinking about the capacity of the earth, it may be impossible for all
nations to develop life styles to the same level as the more highly developed
countries have. We might have to change our thoughts on social
development drastically. Some better off countries may have to lower
their standard of living in some critical respects.
We might even have to change the modernization philosophy. We must
understand and respect the diversity of each others cultures and learn to
coexist. People have a right to live in the own cultures
peacefully. We must secure a safe earth environment and cohabit with
other creatures too.
(Issue
of the change agents)
Strategically and logically, if each country became a "welfare
state", "welfare world" can be simply and readily
established. But even within the United Nations, there are so many
oppressive non democratic governments, so it is not realistic to expect too
much state initiatives. Attention must also be given to the roles and
tasks of NGOs and internationally cooperative civil society. I am
encouraged to have found there are many people and organizations who are
strongly committed to the ideal of creating a welfare world.
When we see the reality of the world and think about the variety of cultures,
the complexity of its traditions, and the huge world population, the
"Welfare World" is almost a dream. But we must cooperate to
change the dream into a concrete vision, together with all people of the world,
especially with people who are already committed to this ideal. Emerging
revolutionary "information society" offers some grounds of
optimism in this respect.
(Further
references)
*Our
Common Future, The World Commision on Environment and Development, 1987
*AGENDA
21:Programme of Action for Sustainable Development (Rio Declaration on
Environment and Development), UM 1992
*World
Social Situation in the 1990's, United Nations, 1994
*Edited
by Michael Redclif and Ted Benton, Social Theory and Global Environment, Routledge,
1994
*Our
Global Neighbourhood (The Report of The Commission on Global Governance)
1995
*Boutros
Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Development 1995, UN
*Boutros
Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace 1995, UN
*Michael
Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars-A Moral Argument with HIstorical Illustrations (Second
Edition), Basic books, 1992
*Alvin
and Heidi Toffler, War and Unti-war:Survival at the Dawn of the 21st
Century, Waner Books, 1993
*Robert
Muller, Dialogues of Hope:My Dream 2000, World Happiness and
Cooperation, 1990
*Robert
Muller, New Genesis:Shaping a Global Spirituality, World Happiness and
Cooperetion, 1993
*Vissions
of A Better World (Peace Messenger Initiative dedicated to the United
Nations 1994