Ship of Fools: The Welfare State 1949

Thread: The Welfare State 1949 Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

Did anyone watch Benefits Britain 1949 in the UK last night? It was the first of four episodes putting modern benefits claimants into a faux-1940’s style welfare system to see the differences in their approach from our own.

I thought this was interesting. It may just be a television show designed for entertainment rather than a serious study, but it does raise some points which may be a good springboard for a broader discussion about the modern welfare state in the UK, how far it has diverged from Beveridge’s initial plan, and welfare systems in general.

Some initial thoughts:

1949 welfare was designed to focus on a person’s prospects, while today we focus on meeting their needs. This is a subtle shift but an important one. In 1949 the system would seek to discover a person’s prospective abilities and seek to encourage, facilitate and even force them to meet those prospects. Today the welfare system is focused on meeting certain basic needs such as food, housing etc. and once met, the state cares little and leaves them to it, to sink or swim on their own. The individual is always right in 2013. In 1949 the state was always right.

In some ways 1949 led to serious abuses such as the state censure of single mothers and it is good this has been lost. But in other ways 1949 was more caring of the whole person, not just giving them some money and expecting them to find a job by themselves or be unemployed, depending on personal choice and interest. But to far more actively help them get a job.

1949 welfare was a ‘planned socialism’, which involved a degree of social engineering for the proposed betterment of individuals and society. The planners of the system believed strongly that work was therapeutic, it gave a person purpose and personal fulfilment. Beveridge designed the system to attack a multi-headed monster of society’s failings and named the heads according to the evils he saw. Want was an evil, as was Squalor and Disease, but Idleness was also considered part of this monster. Is idleness the evil that Beveridge saw it as, and should the state seek to combat it?

Everyone, apart from only the most severely disabled, was considered to benefit from work and so even if an ordinary workplace could not accommodate someone special sheltered workshops were set up to give work experience, even if only light and partial, to people so they could feel they weren’t entirely helpless and unemployable.

The state had the power to force employers to employ disabled people, giving set quotas that the employers had to fill. These quotas were only removed in 1994 to be replaced by the Disability Discrimination Act which sought to regulate the system in a more hands-off fashion. Yet despite the good intentions of the act, it has failed many. Craig from the show has never had a job. He said he has sent out innumerable applications. When he admits to being in wheelchair he never gets an interview. When he doesn’t say he gets an interview but never gets past the first stage. The Disability Discrimination Act is incredibly hard to enforce since how can you prove that someone didn’t get the job because of discrimination? Should it be amended to bring back the quotas?

It’s been said that ‘the 1949 system worked best for those who wanted to work. The system now works best for those who don’t’. There is of course always a balance needed between the need for a secure safety net, and that net being too comfortable. Between getting people back to work, and infringing on their individualism and personal choice. Between being too harsh and hurting people, and being so soft people take advantage.

Has the modern state lost its balance and how can it be righted? The 1949 system may have had many problems and we may be glad we have developed from it. But does Beveridge’s original planned socialist vision have anything to teach us today?

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

I think the Welfare State c 1949 encouraged welfare dependency far less than that of 2013.

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :

Perhaps in 1949 there was more support from families? perhaps les to spend your money on - after all many people didn't have gas or electricity or even inside toilets. At the lowest levels of pay, you paid little or no income tax.

It might be too that the threat of the workhouse was only too close at hand and people were keen to do anything to avoid the horrors and social stigma associated with it.

Bear in mind that although the workhouse name disappeared in 1929 [I think], the institutions still survive in some places as hospitals/homes for the elderly.

Cambridge still operated a casual ward for tramps in Chesterton Union Workhouse (aka Chesterton Hospital) until 1981: my wife ran it alongside her main duty as a staff nurse on an acute elderly ward. Some people died in the same rooms, not just the same building, as they were born.

Posted by Sighthound (# 15185) on :

It's a different world from 1949. For one thing in 1949 Britain was a lot more socialist, or if you like, collective, than it is now. The rampant individualism, the me-me-me! attitude of today was not tolerated. The top rate of income tax was - well off hand I don't know, but a lot more than 45%.

You can't just pick one bit of an era that you like and go back to it. That's the error all nostalgics for the 'golden era' fall into. There never was a golden era. We can no more have 1949 style social security than 1949 style transport or 1949 style education.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

What Sighthound said. Additionally, once the recovery kicked off there was a shortage of labour across many sectors (one reason for Windrush migration).

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
What Sighthound said. Additionally, once the recovery kicked off there was a shortage of labour across many sectors (one reason for Windrush migration).

That's hardly a surprise, given that half a generation had just been wiped out in WW2.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
What Sighthound said. Additionally, once the recovery kicked off there was a shortage of labour across many sectors (one reason for Windrush migration).
That's hardly a surprise, given that half a generation had just been wiped out in WW2.

Er yes .. but that is one reason why you can't really compare the social provisions for those unemployed between now and then.

Posted by Sighthound (# 15185) on :

Indeed, in the early 1950s employers were delighted to employ practically anyone who could remotely do a job. Immigration was encouraged because the powers-that-be didn't like the situation where Joe Bloggs could walk out of his job on Friday and straight into a new one on Monday.

This caused inflation - and inflation is a 'Bad Thing'. Capitalism needs a pool of unemployed to keep wages down and make the oiks grateful to have a job on any terms. Shortage of labour is highly unlikely to return as in issue in the future - if they run short of young folks and immigrants, they'll just push retirement age up again. And they'll blame the problem on the Unions and the 'lazy British worker' - and economic illiterates who make up 95% of the population will lap it all up.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

Inflation is indeed a Bad Thing™. So is unemployment. Treading the tight rope between the two is something successive governments have been rather bad at.

Posted by Sighthound (# 15185) on :

I agree. But it is monstrous to blame the unemployed for economic conditions (and government policies) quite beyond their control.

If we ever again (it is most unlikely!) have a situation where businesses and public services are crying out for labour, it might be a different kettle of fish.

[ 13. August 2013, 16:42: Message edited by: Sighthound ]

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

What realty worries me about the recent plethora of 'benefits' programmes on TV is that they are saying - how much worse off people used to be and ain't they lucky now?

I am sure it's given Duncan Smith yet more ideas about how to punish the disabled.

Mind you, the disabled woman who kept saying shew wouldn't f***ing do it in response to all help wasn't doing any favours to the disabled.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

The technology of 2013 compared to 1949 means that the manual jobs which used to provide young males with work no longer exist .
Accepting there is no foreseeable catastrophic event on the horizon, then the application of robotics is set to remove even more menial work in the near future.

Unless we want the welfare state to continue keeping a large section of the population in virtual moth-balls, it is indeed time for the W.S. to go back to it's roots and use it to direct people into meaningful activity . Just don't ask me what that activity might be.

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

Sounds like a fascinating show. Did the 1949 model assume that the family would have a single (usually male) bread winner and a mother to raise the children?

My recollection is that part of the emphasis on socialist welfare was the discovery during the wars that many of the lower class were not in good enough shape physically or educationally to be in the military and that had to be addressed as a matter of national security.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
My recollection is that part of the emphasis on socialist welfare was the discovery during the wars that many of the lower class were not in good enough shape physically or educationally to be in the military and that had to be addressed as a matter of national security.

That's a theory Claude Cockburn has presented, but he was talking of conscripts in WW I being generally of a much lower physical standard than their German equivalents. He attributed this to the very poor diet many of them endured. He said that Bismarck's social welfare legislation was much more effective in dealing with poverty than the equivalent UK schemes. Given the Great Depression's continuing well into the thirties, compared to the great economic improvement in Germany brought about by the re-armament programme, it would not be surprising if that were the position in WW II as well.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
Indeed, in the early 1950s employers were delighted to employ practically anyone who could remotely do a job. Immigration was encouraged because the powers-that-be didn't like the situation where Joe Bloggs could walk out of his job on Friday and straight into a new one on Monday.

This caused inflation - and inflation is a 'Bad Thing'. Capitalism needs a pool of unemployed to keep wages down and make the oiks grateful to have a job on any terms. Shortage of labour is highly unlikely to return as in issue in the future - if they run short of young folks and immigrants, they'll just push retirement age up again. And they'll blame the problem on the Unions and the 'lazy British worker' - and economic illiterates who make up 95% of the population will lap it all up.

The problem with this analysis is that it's about 100 years out of date. Even longer, perhaps, as it's straight out of Das Kapital.In an economy relying to a great extent on unskilled labour, you might have a point. In a post-industrial economy requiring various differing skillsets, capitalism requires the right people for the right jobs. There is absolutely no benefit in having a general pool of unemployed, nor will immigration help, unless you are clever and lucky in whom you attract. It is rather easier to educate the locals, and that is what I understand the education system has been doing.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Sounds like a fascinating show. Did the 1949 model assume that the family would have a single (usually male) bread winner and a mother to raise the children?

My recollection is that part of the emphasis on socialist welfare was the discovery during the wars that many of the lower class were not in good enough shape physically or educationally to be in the military and that had to be addressed as a matter of national security.

Certainly that was part of the spur in the early 1900s with some of the Liberals' reforms; they were less motivated by Rowntree's report than they were by the fact that one of the reasons we had got a damn good thrashing in the early stages of the (2nd) Boer War was that so many of the oiks in the Army were in such poor physical shape.

I'm not sure that was the motive or even a motive behind the 1940s reforms though.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
In a post-industrial economy requiring various differing skillsets, capitalism requires the right people for the right jobs. There is absolutely no benefit in having a general pool of unemployed, nor will immigration help, unless you are clever and lucky in whom you attract. It is rather easier to educate the locals, and that is what I understand the education system has been doing.

There is still merit to that analysis. Whilst the post-industrial economy may require differing skillsets the effects you are talking about are confined to a few - mostly professional - occupations.

There are still a number of sectors which depend on a large quantity of cheap labour with low expectations around things like housing. Cleaning, catering, private transport, warehouse pickers etc. The low wages in these sectors are substantially subsidised by the government via housing benefit and tax credits.

Posted by Anglo Catholic Relict (# 17213) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Did anyone watch Benefits Britain 1949 in the UK last night? It was the first of four episodes putting modern benefits claimants into a faux-1940’s style welfare system to see the differences in their approach from our own.

No, I did not watch it.

Imo, this programme is just one more message to the UK people to ensure they tolerate heartless treatment of the very weakest people.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

As if we needed proof that people on 'benefits' are hated, this blog quotes some of the hatred

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