Poverty and Welfare in Historical Perspective

Abstract

During the first two decades of the twentieth century, the liberal conception of rights and responsibilities, which had underwritten the political and social system of the Victorian era, began to disintegrate as central governments increasingly intervened in domains, such as social welfare and industrial relations, formerly confined to the ‘private sphere’. The intellectual roots of this chiefly lay in the New Liberal redefinition of liberty in the late nineteenth century, in which negative determinations of liberal basic rights were superseded by the ‘positive’ rights of opportunity and social ‘justice’ to be realised through the actions of the state.¹ International trade and imperialistic rivalries encouraged the process, culminating in the experience of the First World War, which did considerable damage to ‘liberal’ values. Ultimately, the ‘liberal state’ was transformed into the post-1945 ‘social welfare state’ in which central government stood committed to the social rights of citizens.