The Welfare State

Last update: 21 Apr 2025 21:17
First version:

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, "Is Equality Passe? Homo reciprocans and the Future of Egalitarian Politics," Boston Review Dec. 1998
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, speech on welfare reform in the Senate, 16 September 1995: "It will be the first time in the history of the nation that we have repealed a section of the Social Security Act. That the White House should be eager to support such a law is beyond my understanding, and certainly in thirty-four years' service in Washington, beyond my experience.... Do not pretend that you know what you do not know. Look at the beginnings of research and evaluation that say, `Very hard, not clear.' Do not hurt children on the basis of an unproven theory and untested hypothesis."
Andrew J. Polsky, The Rise of the Therapeutic State
Eyal Press and Jennifer Washburn, "The At-Risk-Youth Industry," Atlantic Monthly December 2002 [online]

A. B. Atkinson, The Economic Consequences of Rolling Back the Welfare State
Pranab Bardhan, Samuel Bowles and Michael Wallerstein (eds.), Globalization and Egalitarian Redistribution
Nicholas Barr, The Economics of the Welfare State
Edward D. Berkowitz, America's Welfare State: From Roosevelt to Reagan
Brown, Race, Money, and the American Welfare State
Andrea Louise Campbell, How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State
Francis Castles, The Future of the Welfare State: Crisis Myths and Crisis Realities [Reviewed in The Historical Journal by Salvatore Pitruzzello. Abstract of review: "As Francis Castles observes, quantitative comparative political economy has generated a 'cacophony' of explanations for the welfare state crisis from 1980 to 1998. Political economists have identified causal factors including globalization, de-industrialization, population aging, declining birth rates, weak economic performance, welfare program maturation, political institutions, and partisanship. To Castles, however, these explanations rest on faulty empirical evidence. Methodological problems—in particular, unreliable comparative social expenditure data and overreliance on pooled designs and statistical techniques—have made it impossible to distinguish 'crisis myths' from 'crisis realities.' His proposed solution is to combine cross-national designs with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's SOCX database on social spending, and he argues that doing so reveals that dominant theories are myths. His sweeping account is a spirited contribution, but it is bound to attract significant criticism."]
Janet M. Currie, The Invisible Safety Net: Protecting the Nation's Poor Children and Families
Gerard Dumenil and Dominique Levy, Capital Resurgent: Roots of the Neoliberal Revolution
Neil Gilbert, Transformation of the Welfare State: The Silent Surrender of Public Responsibility
Torben Iversen and Philipp Rehm, Big Data and the Welfare State: How the Information Revolution Threatens Social Solidarity
Jennifer Klein, For All These Rights: Business, Labor, and the Shaping of America's Public-Private Welfare State
Peter Lindert, Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth Since the Eighteenth Century [interesting discussion]
Charles Lochart, Gaining Ground: Tailoring Social Programs to American Values [Probably now obsolete --- it was written in 1989 --- but might be worth looking at. Online]
Isabela Mares, The Politics of Social Risk: Business and Welfare State Development
David A. Moss, When All Else Fails: Government as the Ultimate Risk Manager
Max Neiman, Defending Government: Why Big Government Works
Monica Prasad, The Politics of Free Markets: The Rise of Neoliberal Economic Policies in Britain, France, Germany, and the United State
Elliott Sclar, You Don't Always Get What You Pay For: The Economics of Privatization