Some students of social policy see the development of ‘The Welfare State’ in historical perspective as part of a broad, ascending road of social betterment provided for the working classes since the nineteenth century and achieving its goal in our time. This interpretation of change as a process of unilinear progression in collective benevolence for these classes led to the belief that in the year 1948 ‘The Welfare State’ was established. Since then, successive Governments, Conservative and Labour, have busied themselves with the more effective operation of the various services, with extensions here and adjustments there and both parties, in and out of office, have claimed the maintenance of ‘The Welfare State’ as an article of faith.

On this view it could be supposed that speaking generally, Britain is approaching the end of the road of social reform; the road down which Eleanor Rathbone and other reformers and rebels laboured with vision and effect. This would seem to be the principal implication of much public comment on the social services during the past few years, and one which has received endorsement in policy statements of the Conservative and Labour parties. An analysis of the more important writings on the subject since 1948 lends support, for the dominant note, far from suggesting that social needs have been neglected, has been that ‘The Welfare State’ was ‘established’ too quickly and on too broad a scale. The consequences, it is argued, have been harmful to the economic health of the nation and its ‘moral fibre’.

Against this background, compounded of uneasiness and complacency, criticism has mainly focused on the supposedly equalitarian aims or effects of the social services. It is said that the relief of poverty or the maintenance of a national minimum as an objective of social policy should not mean the pursuit of equality; ‘a fascinating and modern development’ for the social services according to Hagenbuch. The Beveridge ‘revolution’ did not, it is argued, imply an equalitarian approach to the solution of social problems. The error of welfare state policies since 1948 has been, according to this diagnosis, to confuse ends and means, and to pursue equalitarian aims with the result that the ‘burden’ of redistribution from rich to poor has been pushed too far and is now excessive.