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Posted 12-20-99
"The welfare state is unquestionably one of the noblest accomplishments of the 20th century," writes Pranab Chatterjee in his latest book, Repackaging the Welfare State.
In an era of welfare reform and devolution, that statement may seem odd, even coming from the most senior professor at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. Welfare is usually viewed as an unfortunate necessity, even by its advocates.
According to Chatterjee, the welfare state encompasses much more than welfare for the poor.
"All of us are welfare recipients in one way or another," says Chatterjee, a member of the MSASS faculty since 1967. "The stereotypical welfare person is just one small part of it."
In Chatterjee's view, the modern welfare state represents an extension of the state's essential function, which is to protect its citizens from internal and external predators. In addition to providing police and military protection, the welfare state provides protection from ignorance, ill health, and poverty. Public education, health policies such as required immunizations, and social security for retired workers are as much a function of the welfare state as is financial assistance for the poor.
"Throughout history, many states have existed in which either the state or the aristocracy gave charity to less fortunate populations," Chatterjee writes. "To establish built-in protection at the state level for those populations was indeed a major -- and noble -- accomplishment."
The welfare state is an invention of the industrial societies of the 20th century, Chatterjee explains. Earlier societies -- such as hunter/gatherer, agrarian, or agricultural -- did not require a welfare state and, more importantly, could not support one. The basic prerequisite for a sustainable welfare state is an economy capable of generating a surplus, Chatterjee explains, and only capitalist industrial states have that capacity.
Despite the Marxian promise of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his need," the socialist planned economies of the former Communist bloc could not produce enough wealth to deliver on that promise. "So it is an irony that capitalist states are the best welfare states," says Chatterjee. "They don't promise it, but their delivery is the best."
Chatterjee bases his assessment on the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI), which represents equally weighted indicators of quality of life: longevity, income, and knowledge as measured by adult literacy and educational attainment. Using an HDI of 0.875 as a minimum threshold, he found that 24 societies -- mainly first-world societies of the west -- could be called welfare states based on 1992 statistics. Using 1993 data, 11 additional societies qualified as welfare states.
In contrast, the former Communist bloc nations all fell below the 0.875 threshold, and of the 10 that came closest in 1992, most had declining scores in 1993.
The welfare state does not exist in the Third World, although a few Third World nations "are contemplating the erection of welfare states because they have only recently developed the economic ability to do so," Chatterjee writes. "The remainder of the Third World is without any social safety net provided by the state: the family and community are the only providers of social welfare."
In addition to generating enough wealth to create a surplus, a welfare state must maintain an adequate dependency ratio, which the U.N. defines as the ratio of the working-age population to those who are dependent -- under age 15 and over 64. To sustain itself, a welfare state needs enough working people to pay the taxes that support welfare programs for the non-working, Chatterjee notes.
The United States faces a challenge to its dependency ratio in the near future, as the baby boomers hit retirement age. Demographic imbalances in Germany and France, where early retirement is considered an entitlement, are already straining federal budgets.
Chatterjee believes that social workers, sociologists, and economists get caught in a disciplinary tunnel vision that limits their understanding of the welfare state and what must be done to sustain it in the new century. "There are a whole set of problems about the way distribution is done," says Chatterjee. "Social workers and labor leaders are interested in equity; business economists are interested in efficiency. The dilemma for the state is how to balance that equity and efficiency."
Repackaging the Welfare State, like Chatterjee's 1996 book, Approaches to the Welfare State, is published by the National Association of Social Workers' NASW Press. He hopes his new book will promote an interdisciplinary view of the welfare state -- a view that is grounded in the state's protection function, not justice or equity.
"Justice is a restorative process," says Chatterjee. "It means some wrong has been done. And it is only socialists who think anyone who is wealthy is guilty."
Repackaging the Welfare State is available at the University Bookstore, the Harris Library at MSASS, and via the NASW Press Web site at http://www.naswpress.org.
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