The Welfare State

PART 1 : THE WELFARE STATE

—> How was poverty managed in the 19th cent?

—> How were the poor/poverty perceived?

—> What is the legacy of this Victorian perception of poverty today?

1. Definition of the Welfare State

Political system based on the premise that the government (and not the individual, corporations, or the local community) has the responsibility for the well being of its citizens, by ensuring that a minimum standard of livings within everyone’s reach.

- Designation of social groups

- Provision of universal and free education

- Universal medical care

- Insurance against disability, sickness, and unemployment - Family allowances for income supplement

- Old age pensions

2. (Mis) representation of poverty during the victorian era (1830-1900) Demographic growth/urban consequences

- Population growth in cities creating slums

- Slum-dwellers : the Irish immigrants, Polish, Russian and Germans Jews

- Social problems : sanitation, disease, and housing (lack of proper sewage)

- New problems : crime, prostitution and extremely poverty

- Cities seen as « sites of moral corruption and violence, drug addicts, prostitutes.

The Urban divide

Friedrich Engels on the urban divide « The working people’s quarters are sharply separated from the sections of the city reserved from the middle-class » (writing in Manchester in 1845).

- Unequal class relations of Victorian capitalism resulted in urban divide - London population expanding rapidly

- Overcrowded slums (East London) and squalid living conditions.

The city as a place of corruption

- Most famous slum areas were located in East London (often called « darkest London »). No « respectable » citizen would venture there.

There were also slums in other parts of London :

- Devil’sAcre(WestminsterAbbey)

- Pottery Lane in Notting Hill

- Whitechapel in East London, famous for the 1880s murders committed by Jack the Ripper.

- Voyeuristic tourism in slums

The case of Manchester but the same story in every industrial town...

Manchester population :

1801 : 75,281 1871 : 351,189

- Wealth in hands of a few industrial residents...

- Working people, who produced capital but had no access to it, lived and died in miserable conditions.

- Pollution : chimneys of factories, coal (charbon)

The cotton mills-Lancashire

1830 : 560 cotton mills in Lancashire

- 110,000 workers, of which 35,000 were children.

- Someasyoungas6yo.

- Children wages for children : 2s.3p./per week : 10 times less than adult pay. - The « scavengers » risking their lives.

How poverty was defined ?

pauperism is in the blood, if people work hard maybe one day they will become God-fearing, wealth and members of the society.

Self-Help

Defining the principle of self-help :

« Eaven helps those help themselves » by Samuel Smiles, 1868.

« The worth of a Staten is the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing »

Should the general welfare be in the hands of the individuals (self-help, thrift, hard work, perseverance) or was/is the state responsible for the welfare of the people?

—> On-going debate over social policy and role of state

The legacy of self-help in modern society

Magaret Thatcher : « there is no such thing as society » « people must look to themselves first » 1980.

She didn’t believe in the Welfare State.

The Poor Law Amendment Act (1834)

- Old Poor Law (1601) : Parish (paroisses) responsible for distributing poor relief. Poor rate collected and distributed to those in need.

- Yet outdoor relief seen as encouraging idleness and vice.

- Poor Law Amendment Act (1834) :

- New legislation stating that no outdoor relief but relief provided

The Workhouses

Workhouses : living conditions less desirable than that of lowest paid worker.

De-humanizing experience to discourage poor from slipping into behavior.

- Orphaned and abandoned children, the physically and mentally sick, the disabled, the elderly and unmarried mothers...

- Sharp reduction of poverty rate (2m. from MANQUE

Life inside the workhouses

Some novelists and social researchers experienced workhouse life to write about it: Charles Dickens, Jack London, Margaret Harkness....

« The young people never go out, never see a visitor », Margaret Harkness.

Poverty in EDW Ardian Britain 1900-1914

Until beg. of 20th cent., workhouses still operating and dreadful conditions for poor in urban and rural areas.

• Large-scale surveys and writings of social explorers:

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