Richard Titmuss's ‘The Social Division of Welfare’ has been neglected as a framework for assessing changes in social policy and society. The analytical, as opposed to the descriptive, value of the original essay becomes more evident, and more significant, when the relations between the social divisions of labour and welfare are examined in terms of the distribution of benefits and services through the public, fiscal and occupational systems; the growth and differential recognition of needs and ‘man-made’ states of dependency; the variations in the primary objectives of welfare including control; the interrelationship of the different systems and the ways in which they legitimate the existing social structure. This paper seeks to show that, combined with a consideration of power and the state, time and security and the institutions of capitalism, the ideas of the original essay encourage a more dynamic analysis of the impact of the three systems of welfare on society than has so far been attempted.

This paper discusses the notion of paternalism, and its application to the evaluation of social policies. It attempts first to define the concept, using Mill's distinction between self- and other-regarding actions. A paternalistic policy is one in which the government renders a self-regarding action less eligible for a citizen, with the intention of benefiting the citizen in question. This concept is then applied to the analysis of redistribution by means of social policy measures. Two questions are discussed: (a) whether any redistribution must be paternalist, and (b) whether redistribution in kind is more paternalist than redistribution in cash. It is argued that paternalism need not be the explanation for the policy in either case. Finally three criteria are specified in terms of which paternalistic interventions by the state might be assessed as justified or not.

Many social workers today are critical of what they regard as their profession's conventional concern with remedial social welfare. This criticism has been voiced with special reference to developing countries, and some social workers have suggested alternative roles for social work in the third world. Among these it has been suggested that social workers should take prime responsibility for social development planning in the developing countries. But this suggestion is unrealistic. Social workers are not likely to be asked to participate in national social policy formulation and planning until they have legitimized their claim to professional status and public recognition and demonstrated their ability to deal with the pressing problems of poverty in the third world through direct service.

This paper takes as its subject the explanation of social policy development through the use of comparative data. It is based upon the book by Piven and Cloward entitled Regulating the Poor, published in 1972. This book has been both dismissed too lightly and adopted too uncritically. While the thesis of the book may be somewhat over-simplified it nevertheless points to a range of important issues in social policy and exposes a number of assumptions. As well as evaluating Piven's and Cloward's general perspective this paper looks, in particular, at three themes. These are the relationship between social policy and social control, the relationship between work and welfare and lastly the relationship between power and poverty.