Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of photographs and sources
- Foreword
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction Owning not othering our welfare
- Part One The legacy of the past
- Part Two The way to the future
- Afterword The future: a different way forward?
- Appendix One The family
- Appendix Two Research projects and related publications
- References
- Index
Six - The welfare state: whose consensus?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of photographs and sources
- Foreword
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction Owning not othering our welfare
- Part One The legacy of the past
- Part Two The way to the future
- Afterword The future: a different way forward?
- Appendix One The family
- Appendix Two Research projects and related publications
- References
- Index
Summary
No-one can seriously deny that, whatever else Thatcherism represents, it embodies a genuine ideological break with the social democratic post-war consensus
(Phil Lee, Marxism Today, May 1983)The Conservative Policy is simply more (or rather less) of the same.
(Ian Gough, Marxism Today, July 1980)(The above two quotes originally juxtaposed by Taylor-Gooby, 1985, 71)
How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the twentieth century.
(Aneurin Bevan)Political consensus?
The period between the 1940s and late 1970s has frequently been described as one of political consensus or ‘settlement’ over the welfare state. Conservative governments of the 1950s supported ‘the spirit of the reforms and maintained their basic structure’. As Alcock observes: ‘The cross-party consensus on state welfare was so strong that it even acquired an acronym – Butskellism – comprised of the names of the Labour Chancellor (Gaitskell) and his Conservative successor (Butler)’ (Alcock, 2012a, 8).
Between 1945 and the election of Mrs Thatcher in 1979, there was cross-party political and policy support for the welfare state including collectivism, a mixed economy and state health and welfare services. This embraced Keynesian economics and nationalised industries. Kynaston has noted:
There was no meaningful attempt to reform, let alone dismantle the NHS or the welfare state more generally; the only industries to be denationalised were steel and road haulage; the goal of full employment remained sacrosanct; rent controls stayed in place, at least for the time being; and the position and privileges of the trade unions were positively enhanced. (Kynaston, 2010, 72)
While this consensus is contested by some social policy commentators, a strong case can be made for some such ideological convergence between Labour and Conservative parties. As Robert Page has written: ‘The possibility of an emerging post-war economic and social consensus based on support for the mixed economy (private and public enterprise), ‘Keynesian’ interventionism, and the welfare state was given added weight by the growing influence of revisionist thinking within Labour circles’ (Page, 2012, 128).
The social policy academic Hugh Bochel concludes that as with the Liberal reforms of the early twentieth century: ‘The Conservatives, particularly under Macmillan’s premiership, maintained a commitment to full employment, an incomes policy, and social welfare, including developing further some parts of the welfare state’ (Bochel, 2012, 66).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- All our WelfareTowards Participatory Social Policy, pp. 99 - 118Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2016