To what extent can it be said that the Liberal Government of 1906-1911 laid the basis for the British welfare state?

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To what extent can it be said that the Liberal Government of 1906-1911 laid the basis for the British welfare state?

       Since the end of World War II the United Kingdom has been increasingly referred to as a welfare state.  This means the government of the day has a responsibility to eliminate the worst causes of poverty by imposing minimum standards of subsistence, medical care, education, housing and nutrition by the means of the social services, minimum wage legislation and government regulations.  These minimum standards were established as a floor or safety net below which no one in society would be allowed to sink.  As Sir William Beveridge stated, the welfare state should cover one's life from the "cradle to the grave".   Although the welfare state is predominantly a post-1945 phenomena, I will argue in this essay that the Liberal Government of 1906-1911 made an enormous contribution in paving the way for its existence. However, I will attempt to place its importance in historical context relative to other key contributors both before and after.

      In early 19th century Britain, as for centuries before, poverty was regarded as natural or inevitable.  It was assumed that the great majority of people would be born poor and would remain poor, with many becoming destitute.  The dominating classical liberal philosophy of the period demanded that individuals should be allowed to pursue their own self-interest free from government intervention [laissez-faire] in the private market.  Poor individuals who demonstrated exceptional ability could independently progress but it was generally accepted that, apart from charity and almsgiving, little or nothing could, or should, be done to relieve mass poverty.

      As the century progressed the existence of widespread need in the midst of great wealth led to philosophical, political and social discomfort.  With the French Revolution encouraging "liberty, equality and fraternity", a newly awakening humanitarian or collectivist spirit in Britain led to a redefining of traditional liberal individualist beliefs.  If it could be shown that mass poverty wasn't "natural" but a problem of the society, then it was up to state institutions to do something about  destitution.

     Many writers would argue that is was this point in history where the foundations of the welfare state were laid.  If so, then the "father" of the welfare state was the British philosopher, economist and lawyer Jeremy Bentham [1748-1832], the founder of utilitarianism.  Paradoxically,  Bentham and his followers in the cause of extending laissez-faire and the privatisation of government functions, were inadvertently instrumental in encouraging the state to intervene more in the private market.   At the heart of Bentham's utilitarianism is the important proposition or ethical standard that actions are right [useful] if they tend to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.  The utility principle became Bentham's tool he used to promote legislative reform and to criticise most social institutions and practices.  In the interests of practical reform, Utilitarians, unlike the classical liberalists, would argue that, in applying the utility principle, the happiness of the individual could be sacrificed for the happiness of the many.  

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     Where Bentham and his followers differ from the classical liberalist view of poverty is in the demand for continuous reform.  Utilitarians viewed poverty as a barrier to happiness and consequently completely unacceptable.  They maintain that the "greatest happiness" principle requires that everyone should be saved from starvation and the fear of starvation.  The government has a duty to intervene when individuals, because of age, sickness, inherited poverty or bad luck, fail to individually self-improve.  Unlike the old poor laws, Bentham and his followers proposed that, in the interests of both the individual and the public, conditions on ...

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