Introduction

Abstract

After World War II, European and American countries embarked on the road of development that was later called “welfare state,” characterized by a large part of the national economy leaning toward nationalization. Before the war, especially in European and American countries before the Great Depression, the liberalized market economy was promoted. After the Great Depression, it turned to the Keynesian path of active government intervention. Welfare system has become the main institutional choice of the left-wing parties, especially in Western Europe and Northern Europe. For example, Britain began to establish a welfare state system from cradle to grave in 1948. Judging from the background at that time, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. However, in the early 1970s, especially when the oil crisis broke out, the original welfare system continued to suffer. As Mr. Giddens pointed out: “Capital owners have lost a lot of power. The state controls most of the decision-making power and resources previously held by private capital, resulting in the combination of nationalization and the development of welfare system.” When the pendulum swings to its peak, it will move in the opposite direction. Under this background, since the conservative leader Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, both the conservative party and the labor party cabinet have strongly advocated the reform path of “privatization.” Similarly, the Republican Ronald Reagan’s revolution in 1980 during Reagan’s administration, both of which claimed the rationality of the reform itself with “neoliberalism,” the original color of state intervention gradually faded out, and the market economy returned to the major European and American countries as a “panacea” to cure the long-term stagnation of the domestic economy. However, this market-oriented reform is not only different from the pure laissez-faire market economy in the past but also from the “Keynesianism” in the 1930s, and as Anthony Giddens said, “beyond the left and right” to take the “third way.”