The welfare sate – cleavages between Germany and the United Kingdom

Résumé du document

Since the comfortable mixture of economic growth and welfare state expansion has come to an end the welfare state has been subjected to a crisis discussion. Its integrative capacity and its ability to compromise different class interests have been doubted. It was assumed that the higher status groups will express their anti-welfare sentiments within the political arena, whereas the welfare beneficiaries of the lower status sections of the society might be the defenders of the welfare state. In this regard, it was widely assumed that people will support social institutions if they derive benefits from them. The "beneficial involvement" of social groups was seen as the crucial factor for the public standing of the welfare institutions. Special attention was given to the middle classes: "The idea here is that if the middle classes benefit from programmes, then they will not use their not inconsiderable political skills to obtain more resources for those programmes or to defend them in periods of decline" (Goodin/LeGrand, 1987). This essay sets out a comparative frame which charts the attitudinal stances towards the welfare state in Great Britain and Germany...

Extraits

[...] Clarke (eds.) Comparing Welfare States. Britain in international context, p. 19-48. Clasen, J Social security the core of the German employment- centred social state. Clasen /R. Freeman (eds.) Social Policy in Germany. p. 61-82. Clasen, J Social Insurance in Germany dismantling or reconstruction? In J. [...]

[...] Therefor, skilled workers, white-collar employees and civil servants have appeared as strong defenders of the core welfare institutions (see Alber, 1986). With regard to the liberal model, it was argued that the “middle class legitimacy” is the distinctive feature of the German ‘social security state' (Leibfried, 1989). Although equivalence and compensatory principles have a dominant position in the system, there are also apparent redistributive efforts. Clasen (1997) has noted that the mix of principles which the social insurances incorporate makes income redistribution easier to legitimise; different values can be stressed and applied. [...]

[...] The ‘industrial achievement model' is in Titmuss (1974) words one where “social needs should be met on the basis of merit, work performance and productivity.” Hence, social protection is not confined to those who are presently in distress, as in the liberal ideal, but moreover it covers those groups which are considered to be the productive resources of the industrial society. The main pillar of the German welfare state are social insurances which are closely related to the labour market[2]. Their organisational form links benefits to prior earnings in order to maintain the relative status of the beneficiary. The principle of equivalence is status preserving and puts emphasis on upholding status differences. [...]

[...] These claiming principles and the benefit structures are crucial factors in shaping the political surroundings of the social security programs. Since the reduction of the income related supplement of the pensions and the transfer of many employees into the private pension sector, the stake of the people in the state pension system has diminished. The basic pension is not designed to satisfy the upper and the middle classes. For them, occupational and private pensions have a great significance for the income maintenance in old age. [...]

[...] Offe (1991) examines the employment-centered nature of the German security system. According to him, the system establishes a premium for all those who “lead an ordinary and orderly work life by ‘earning' a full (and referably uninterrupted) record”. That is what he called the ‘hidden curriculum' of the social security system. In a number of programmatic elements of the German welfare system dependants can acquire entitlements through the breadwinners contribution. It is interesting to note that this morally undemanding institutional architecture has always been criticised by the Left. [...]