Beveridge, William Henry

Economist who helped shape Britain's

post-World War II welfare state policies and institutions through his Social Insurance and Allied Services (1942), also known as the Beveridge Report.

 

More than any other single figure, he brought the welfare state to Britain

 

The son of a British civil servant in India, he was educated at Balliol College, Oxford.

 

His lifelong interest in the causes and cures of unemployment began in 1903 with his appointment as sub-warden of Toynbee Hall, a London settlement house.

 

At one of her famous strategic dinner parties, British socialist Beatrice Webb introduced her young protégé, Beveridge, to Winston Churchill. Churchill then invited Beveridge to serve as an adviser to the Board of Trade. Beveridge continued to serve in government, next as director of Labour Exchanges (1909–16) and later as permanent secretary of the Ministry of Food (1919).

 

He directed the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1919 until 1937, when he was elected master of University College, Oxford. He was knighted in 1919 and was created a baron in 1946.

 

In Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (1909), Beveridge argued that unemployment was in large measure caused by the organization of industry. His revised views, set forth in Full Employment in a Free Society (1944), were strongly influenced by Keynesian economics. Beveridge's most notable achievement came during World War II, when, at the invitation of the government, he helped work out the blueprints of the new British welfare state.

 

The welfare state, the modern use of the term is associated with the comprehensive measures of social insurance adopted in 1948 by Great Britain on the basis of the report on Social Insurance and Allied Services (1942) by Sir William (later Lord) Beveridge.

 

It is a concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those unable to avail themselves of the minimal provisions for a good life. The general term may cover a variety of forms of economic and social organization.

 

A fundamental feature of the welfare state is social insurance, a provision common to most advanced industrialized countries (e.g., National Insurance in the United Kingdom and Social Security in the United States). Such insurance is usually financed by compulsory contributions and is intended to provide benefits to persons and families during periods of greatest need. It is widely recognized, however, that in practice these cash benefits fall considerably short of the levels intended by the designers of the plans.

 

The welfare state also usually includes public provision of basic education, health services, and housing (in some cases at low cost or without charge). In these respects the welfare state is considerably more extensive in western European countries than in the United States, featuring in many cases comprehensive health coverage and provision of state-subsidized tertiary education.

 

Anti-poverty programs and the system of personal taxation may also be regarded as aspects of the welfare state. Personal taxation falls into this category insofar as its progressivity is used to achieve greater justice in income distribution (rather than merely to raise revenue) and also insofar as it is used to finance social insurance payments and other benefits not completely financed by compulsory contributions. In socialist countries the welfare state also covers employment and administration of consumer prices.

 

In the 20th century, as the earlier concept of the passive laissez-faire state was gradually abandoned, almost all states sought to provide at least some of the measures of social insurance associated with the welfare state. Thus, in the United States the New Deal of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Fair Deal of Pres. Harry S. Truman, and a large part of the domestic programs of later presidents were based on welfare state principles.

 

In its more thoroughgoing form, the welfare state provides state aid for the individual in almost all phases of life—“from the cradle to the grave”—as exemplified in the Netherlands and the Social Democratic governments of the Scandinavian countries.

 

Many less-developed countries have the establishment of some form of welfare state as their goal.

Encyclopædia Britannica