The Origins of the Welfare State

Abstract

To disentangle the origins and functions of welfare policies let us begin with Marx’s own study of the British Factory Acts in the nineteenth century.¹ He demonstrated how the Ten Hours Act and other factory legislation was the result of unremitting struggle by the working class against their exploitation, yet ultimately served the longer-term interests of capital by preventing the over-exploitation and exhaustion of the labour force. The short-term economic interests of each individual capitalist conflicted with their longer-term collective interests:

Capital takes no account of the health and length of life of the worker, unless society forces it to do so … under free competition, the immanent laws of capitalist production confront the individual capitalist as a coercive force external to him.

The outside intervention of the state was necessary to nullify the anonymous pressures of the market on each firm. Yet Marx was clear that this intervention was not initiated by representatives of the capitalist class, indeed it was persistently and fiercely opposed by them: ‘The establishment of a normal working day is the result of centuries of struggle between the capitalist and the worker.’²