Abstract
Marxism is relevant to welfare on two counts. First, as a comprehensive theory of society it provides an explanation of the nature of welfare and its development in bourgeois and other societies. Secondly, as a normative theory concerned with the transcendence of capitalism it offers a particular view of problems germane to welfare and of their ‘definitive’ solution. Marxism of course includes Marx’s own thought as well as of others whose basic ideas and analyses are close to Marx’s. This raises the problem of distinguishing ‘Marxist’ from a variety of ‘radical’, ‘socialist’, ‘conflict’ or what has been called ‘Marxisant’ viewpoints. Perhaps the problem can best be approached in terms of the distance from the leading ideas of Marx. This gives us a continuum with some interpretations of welfare closer to Marx’s viewpoint than others, although where one draws the line and whom one includes under the rubric of ‘Marxist’ must remain an arbitrary choice. It is in this sense that I have chosen to focus on the writings of a number of contemporaries, including those of Gough, O’Connor, Offe and Saville, as examples of Marxist thinking on welfare. But I begin by looking at Marx’s own view of welfare.1
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Notes and References
Robert Pinker, Social Theory and Social Policy (London: Heinemann, 1971) pp. 32–3.
This paragraph is based on K. Marx and F. Engels, ‘Communist Manifesto’ and K. Marx ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Preface)’. See Lewis S. Feuer (ed.), Marx and Engels: Basic Writings (London: Fontana, 1969) chs 1 and 2.
See ‘Communist Manifesto’ and K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology, Part One (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1974).
See ‘Communist Manifesto’, and ‘Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts’, in T. B. Bottomore, Karl Marx: Early Writings (London: Watts, 1963).
See, for example, ‘Inaugural Address of the Working Men’s International Association’ in K. Marx and F. Engels, On Britain (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962).
For Marx’s scepticism about factory legislation see, for example, K. Marx, Capital, vol. I (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1974) pp. 377, 451–65 passim.
Two recent works addressed directly to issues of the welfare state are Ian Gough, The Political Economy of the Welfare State (London: Macmillan, 1979);
and Norman Ginsburg, Class, Capital and Social Policy (London: Macmillan, 1979).
We might mention, for example, Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969);
Nicos Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes (London: New Left Books, 1973); ‘The Problem of the Capitalist State’ (the much-publicised debate between Poulantzas and Miliband on the state) in Robin Blackburn (ed.), Ideology in Social Science (London: Fontana/Collins, 1972).
For a more recent, if esoteric, collection of papers see John Holloway and Sol Picciotto (eds), State and Capital (London: Arnold, 1978). For a brief and highly readable overview, see David A. Gold et al., ‘Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of the Capitalist State’, Monthly Review, vol. 27 (5 and 6), Oct–Nov 1975.
John Saville, ‘The Welfare State: An Historical Approach’, New Reasoner, vol. 3, 1957–8.
G. W. Domhoff, The Higher Circles: The Governing Class in America (New York: Random House, 1971).
James O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973) p. 6.
Ernest Mandel, Marxist Economic Theory (London: Merlin, 1968).
Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968) especially ch. 6.
Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare (London: Tavistock, 1972), seek to demonstrate this in respect of public assistance (poor relief).
See Gaston V. Rimlinger, Welfare Policy and Industrialization in Europe, America and Russia (New York: John Wiley, 1971) pp. 111–14, 130.
Quoted in Ralph Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism (London: Merlin, 1973) p. 37n.
Bernard Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960);
Bentley B. Gilbert, The Evolution of National Insurance in Great Britain (London: Michael Joseph, 1966) ch. 2.
See G. R. Searle, The Quest for National Efficiency (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971).
‘The Social Division of Welfare’, Richard M. Titmuss, in Essays on ‘the Welfare State’ (London: Allen & Unwin, 1963).
Richard M. Titmuss, Income Distribution and Social Change (London: Allen & Unwin, 1962).
Peter Townsend, Sociology and Social Policy (London: Allen Lane, 1975) pp. 2–6.
See, for example, Maurice Bruce, The Coming of the Welfare State (London: Batsford, 1965) pp. 174–81.
For a philosophical discussion of the Marxist concept of needs, see Agnes Heller, The Theory of Need in Marx (London: Allison & Busby, 1974). Heller’s discussion of ‘alienated’ and ‘radical’ needs touches on fascinating issues concerning the sociology and philosophy of needs.
For an altogether different, positivistic, view of needs, see Della Adam Nevitt, ‘Demand and Need’, in Foundations of Social Administration, ed. Helmuth Heisler (London: Macmillan, 1977).
See, for example, Townsend, Sociology and Social Policy, preface; Vic George and Paul Wilding, Ideology and Social Welfare (London: Routledge, 1976) ch. 6;
Richard M. Titmuss, ‘Poverty versus Inequality’, in Poverty, ed. Jack L. Roach and Janet K. Roach (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972);
Pamela Roby (ed.), The Poverty Establishment (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974).
See Robin Blackburn, ‘The Unequal Society’, in Power in Britain, ed. John Urry and John Wakeford (London: Heinemann, 1973);
J. L. Nicholson, Redistribution of Income in the United Kingdom (London: Bowes & Bowes, 1964) pp. 60–1 for a comparison of income distribution before and after the Second World War;
Gabriel Kolko, Wealth and Power in America (London: Thames & Hudson, 1962) especially ch. 2.
See, for example, Richard M. Titmuss, ‘Trends in Social Policy: Health’, in his Commitment to Welfare (London: Allen & Unwin, 1968);
A. J. Willcocks, The Creation of the National Health Service (London: Routledge, 1967); and Gilbert, The Evolution of National Insurance in Great Britain, which, however, makes some effort to situate the specific developments within a wider structural framework.
This is discussed in John H. Goldthorpe, ‘The Development of Social Policy in England, 1800–1914’, Transactions of the Fifth World Congress of Sociology, vol. 4, 1962, pp. 42–3.
For example, the ‘fiscal crisis’ of the state referred to by O’Connor arises, partly, because the liberal political order is responsive to the demands of the electorate and various pressure groups. See Daniel Bell, ‘The Public Household — on “Fiscal Sociology” and the Liberal Society’, Public Interest, vol. 37, 1974, pp. 37–40.
See Frank Parkin, ‘System Contradiction and Political Transformation’, European Journal of Sociology, vol. 13(1), 1972. For a view of the contradictions of capitalism leading towards the restoration of equilibrium (rather than destabilisation) see Roger Friedland, Frances Piven et al. ‘Political Conflict, Urban Structure, and the Fiscal Crisis’, in Comparing Public Policies, ed. Douglas E. Ashford (London: Saye, 1978).
See, for example, Marx and Engels, ‘Communist Manifesto’, in Feuer (ed.), Marx and Engels, p. 81; and Ralph Miliband, Marxism and Politics (Oxford University Press, 1977) ch. 6.
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© 1981 Ramesh Mishra
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Mishra, R. (1981). The Marxist Perspective. In: Society and Social Policy. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16596-4_5
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