Liberalism and the welfare state

Roger Backhouse, Bradley W. Bateman, Tamotsu Nishizawa, Dieter Plehwe

"The welfare state has, over the past forty years, come under increasing attack from liberals who consider comprehensive welfare provision inimical to liberalism. Yet, many of the architects of the post-World War II welfare states were liberals, many of whom were economists as much as socialists. Liberalism and the Welfare State investigates the thinking of liberal economists about welfare, focusing on Britain, Germany and Japan, each of which had a different tradition of economic thinking and different institutions for welfare provision. This volume explores the early history of welfare thinking from the British New Liberals of the early twentieth century, German Ordoliberals and post-war Japanese Liberal economists. It delves into arguments about neoliberalism under British Conservative and New Labour governments, after German reunification, and under Koizumi in Japan. Given the...