Abstract
The “welfare state” concept hides an important aspect of modern industrial societies. In capitalist countries welfare is provided through a mixture of public and private initiatives. The author suggests that the concept “welfare economy” more fully captures the economic interpenetration of public and private sectors. The growth of fringe benefits illustrates the extent to which private enterprise performs the welfare function.
Government increasingly intervenes through processes of mandating, stimulating, regulating, and supporting, using private enterprise as the vehicle for delivery of welfare services. Government's traditionally conceived role as welfare service provider is also changed through recognition that it is both an employer and purchaser, significantly impacting society's original income distribution.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cazes, B. (1979). “The Crisis of the Welfare State in the Western Economies,” a paper prepared for a conference in Mexico City supported by the Fondacion de Sciences Humaines, August, 1979.
Klein, R. (1978). “Public Expenditures in an Inflationary World,” a paper prepared for the Brookings project on the politics and sociology of global inflation, November, 1978, pp. 5 and 6.
Reid, G. L. (1961). “The concept of fringe benefits,” Scottish Journal of Political Economy 9: 208–218.
Reid, G. L. and Robertson, D.J. (1965). Fringe Benefits, Labor Costs and Social Security. London: Allen & Unwin, Ltd., p. 21.
Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth (1979). Report Number 8, Fifth Report on the Standing Reference, London: HMSO.
Schultze, C. L. (1977). The Public Use of the Private Interest, Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute, p. 9.
Skolnick, M. (1976). “Twenty-five years of employee benefit plans,” Social Security Bulletin, September, p. 4.
Smeeding, T. (1981). “The size distribution of wage and non-wage compensation: employer cost vs. employee value,” a paper prepared for the NBER Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, December, 1981.
Thurow, C. (1981). “Equity, Efficiency, Social Justice and Redistribution,” a paper prepared for the OECD Conference on Social Policy in the 1980s, Paris.
Titmuss, R. M. (1958). “The social division of welfare,” in Essays in the Welfare State, London: Allen & Unwin, Ltd., Chapter 3.
Townsend, P. (1979). Poverty in the United Kingdom, London: Pelican Books, p. 223.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
An earlier version of this essay was presented as a lecture at the University of Melbourne and published in Ronald F. Henderson, The Welfare Stakes: Strategies for Australian Social Policy, Melbourne: Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research, 1981.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rein, M. The social policy of the firm. Policy Sci 14, 117–135 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00137113
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00137113