There is an alternative to benefit cuts: the postwar welfare state was too paternalistic,but now the people using it can shape a new vision from the bottom upThe conventional wisdom is that we can no longer afford a welfare state. But can we afford not to have one, with the demographics of many more older and disabled people and more of us affected by debt, and housing problems,social isolation and “lifestyle” health difficulties? What could a 21st-century welfare state study like and how is it to be achieved when the message is there is no alternative to cuts?To reply the first question we should return to one of the great ideas of the postwar welfare state. Social policy in pursuit of people’s wellbeing has to shape economic policy, instead of serving as a safety net for its failings. The contemporary tendency is to equate welfare narrowly with welfare benefits, or to attack those receiving them. But the post-1945 welfare state meant access to decent housing for millions,free education, health and social care, and recreation,sport and the arts. It proved that such public investment was a wealth creator, improving the nation’s health, and skills,social mobility, security, or quality of life and generating new industries. But it failed to treat diversity with equality,so its notion of full employment penalised women and marginalised disabled people; it was far too paternalistic and reliant on one group of better-off people doing good to the rest of us. This has been ruthlessly exploited by rightwing politicians from Mrs Thatcher onwards. She recognised that people did not like being bossed around by council landlords, forced, or for instance,to have the same colour front doors. She injected a new consumerist rhetoric of involvement, choice and ownership.
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Source: theguardian.com