Poor Relief as a Control Strategy

Abstract

This chapter sets out to verify the thesis that poor relief was a control strategy of the Amsterdam elites (Appendix A provides more general methodological considerations). An analysis of the social position of Amsterdam charity administrators will determine whether the elites were able to influence social policies by virtue of the fact that these administrators were recruited from their ranks. The main features of social policy will then be reviewed and explained in terms of collective interests in the provision of poor relief. The free-rider problem associated with work for a charity is examined next. Then a financial question is raised, namely whether it was the elites or other social groups that bore the costs of poor relief. In this context, too, a free-rider problem is discussed, but this time in connection with the question of why people gave to poor relief.