By the last quarter of the 19th century, the ideology of laissez-faire was beginning to loosen its grip on government policy in the industrial countries of Europe. Successive governments in England had already introduced considerable legislation that went against the philosophy of government non-intervention in economic and social affairs: factory legislation that restricted the number of hours of work, or attempted to make working conditions less unsafe; public health legislation designed to prevent or limit the effects of epidemics in cities; several education acts that tried to improve the scope and level of education in the country; and legislation that extended the franchise to more groups of the adult male population.

Government intervention in social affairs had truly begun and could not be stopped or reversed, due to the rising political power of the emerging working class, if for no other reason. There was, thus, an urgent need for a new dominant ideology to encourage and legitimise government intervention in public affairs. The two new ideologies – Marxism and socialism – could not fill the gap because their demands were totally unacceptable to the ruling groups of society as well as to many groups of the populace, for they both demanded the abolition of the capitalist system itself, though in different ways. Green's ideas were a response to this need and filled the gap admirably – they pointed the way towards the reform but not the abolition of capitalism. Green's argument was for a welfare liberal society or, in today's language, for a welfare capitalist society, a welfare state of a sort.

Green was a liberal by political conviction, a university professor of philosophy by profession and a political activist at the local level. He aimed his philosophy as much at academia as at the political establishment of his party – it had the ambitious aim of not merely explaining the world but of changing it, too, to use Marx's notable phrase. It is a mistake, however, to put too much emphasis on the role of ideas as the force behind the reforms that have led up to today's welfare state. The first major welfare reforms in Europe were introduced not by a left-wing but by a right-wing politician, Chancellor Bismarck of Germany, in an effort to undermine the political radicalism of the working class.