Abstract
In this and the following chapter we shall examine aspects of poor relief and social security administration and policy in England and Wales since the early nineteenth century. The terms poor relief and social security are generic terms, neither of which are really adequate, but we shall be concentrating here on cash payments by the parish or the state to those people variously defined as ‘in need’. Clearly such payments are a central pillar of the welfare state, which have saved many people from destitution and starvation. As long ago as 1921 social security expenditure formed 4.7 per cent of the gross national product, rising to 6.7 per cent in 1931 amidst mass unemployment. Such proportions were not reached again until the 1960s, but by 1975 it had reached 9.5 per cent.1 Social security has provided essential material support to working-class people who fall on hard times in a whole variety of circumstances. The growth in the level and coverage of benefits has been linked to the growth of working-class strength and organisation in the struggle towards the improvement of their living conditions. In that sense the social security system is a product of class struggle. It is unlikely that drastic cuts in the level of and eligibility for benefits would be possible aside from a general context of a massive defeat of the working class as a whole.
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Notes and References
For further discussion of the shape of welfare expenditures see I. Gough, The Political Economy of the Welfare State (London: Macmillan, 1979).
E. Mandel, Late Capitalism (London: New Left Books, 1975) p. 151.
The contribution and benefit record of every insured person and recipient of benefit is kept at the Longbenton office of DHSS in Newcastle, which is one of the largest office organisations in Europe, employing over 10,000 people. The contributory principle has thus created a whole army of clerks completely remote from their clientele, performing a highly routinised function in an almost Kafkaesque operation. See R. G. S. Brown, The Management of Welfare (London: Fontana, 1975) pp. 84–5.
See J. C. Kincaid, Poverty and Equality in Britain (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973) pp. 214–20
and also V. George, Social Security & Society (London: Routledge, 1973) pp. 17–19.
G. V. Rimlinger, Welfare Policy and Industrialisation in Europe, America and Russia (New York: Wiley, 1971) p. 339. Chapter 4 of this book describes the political origins of social insurance under Bismarck in Germany in the 1870s.
B. B. Gilbert, British Social Policy 1914–1939 (London: Batsford, 1970) p. 236.
E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968) p. 73.
E. J. Hobsbawm and G. Rudé, Captain Swing (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973) p. 27.
M. Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism (London: Routledge, 1963) p. 275.
S. G. and E. O. A. Checkland, The Poor Law Report of 1834 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974).
See D. Roberts, The Victorian Origins of the British Welfare State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960) p. 258.
See M. Anderson, Family Structure in Nineteenth Century Lancashire (London: Cambridge University Press, 1971) p. 137; and Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, p. 334.
See ibid., p. 246, and A. Redford, Labour Migration in England 1800–1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1964) Chapter VI.
R. Pinker, Social Theory and Social Policy (London: Heinemann, 1971) p. 57.
Oldham was a particularly militant example. See J. Foster, Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution (London: Weidenfeld, 1974) Chapter 3.
S. and B. Webb, English Poor Law History: Part II — the Last Hundred Years (London: Frank Cass, 1963), p. 229.
See G. Stedman Jones, Outcast London (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976) Chapters 14 and 15.
See J. Harris, Unemployment and Politics: a Study in English Social Policy 1886–1914 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972) p. 149.
See P. Ryan, ‘Poplarism 1894–1930’ in The Origins of British Social Policy, ed. P. Thane (London: Croom Helm, 1978) p. 62.
See K. D. Brown, Labour and Unemployment 1900–1914 (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971) which describes the development of the politics of unemployment within the Labour movement.
See B. B. Gilbert, The Evolution of National Insurance in Great Britain (London: Michael Joseph, 1966) p. 243.
See B. Showier, The Public Employment Service (London: Longman, 1976).
P. Thane, The Working Class and the ‘Welfare State’, an unpublished paper given at the British Sociological Association Conference, Sheffield, 1977, p. 27.
The history of relief for strikers is described by J. Gennard, Financing Strikers (London: Macmillan, 1977) Chapter 2.
See ibid. and P. Ryan, ‘The Poor Law in 1926’ in The General Strike, ed. M. Morris (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976).
A. Deacon, ‘Concession and Coercion: the Politics of Unemployment Insurance in the 1920’s’ in Essays in Labour History, eds. A. Briggs and J. Saville (London: Croom Helm, 1977) p. 16.
E. Briggs and A. Deacon, ‘The Creation of the Unemployment Assistance Board’, Policy & Politics, vol. 2, no. 1 (1974) p. 51. This explains in part the shortfall between the numbers of registered unemployed and the numbers claiming relief and benefits on account of unemployment; see Table 3.1.
W. Hannington, Unemployed Struggles 1919–1936 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1977) p. 211.
See M. Jacques, ‘Consequences of the General Strike’ in The General Strike 1926, ed. J. Skelley (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1976).
See M. Branson and M. Heinemann, Britain in the Nineteen Thirties (London: Panther, 1973) pp. 43–54.
See H. Heclo, Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974) pp. 150–2.
See F. Field, ‘Making Sense of the Unemployment Figures’ in The Conscript Army, ed. F. Field (London: Routledge, 1977).
See Penelope Hall’s Social Services of England & Wales, ed. J. B. Mays, ninth edition (London: Routledge, 1975) p. 114.
See Supplementary Benefits Commission, The Administration of the Wage Stop (London: HMSO, 1967).
See L. Elks, The Wage Stop: Poor By Order, Poverty Pamphlet No. 17 (London: Child Poverty Action Group, 1974).
N. D. Ellis and W. E. J. McCarthy, ‘Introduction and Interpretation’ in S. R. Parker, C. G. Thomas, N. D. Ellis and W. E. J. McCarthy, The Effects of the Redundancy Payments Act (London: HMSO, 1971) p. 3.
See R. Martin and R. H. Fryer, Redundancy and Paternalist Capitalism (London: Allen & Unwin, 1973) p. 172.
See M. Meacher, Scrounging on the Welfare (London: Arrow, 1974) p. 36.
M. J. Hill, Policies for the Unemployed: Help or Coercion?, Poverty Pamphlet No. 15 (London: Child Poverty Action Group, 1974) p. 6.
See F. Field and S. Winyard, ‘Government Action Against Unemployment’ in The Conscript Army, ed. F. Field (London: Routledge, 1977).
See B. Jordan, Poor Parents (London: Routledge, 1974) Chapters 1–4.
See M. Rein, ‘Work Incentives and Welfare Reform’ in Incentives and Planning in Social Policy, eds B. Stein and S. M. Miller (Chicago: Aldine, 1973).
J. W. Durcan and W. E. J. McCarthy, ‘The State Subsidy Theory of Strikes’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. XXII (1974) p. 45.
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© 1979 Norman Ginsburg
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Ginsburg, N. (1979). Social Security, Class Struggle and the Reproduction of Capital. In: Class, Capital and Social Policy. Critical Texts in Social Work and the Welfare State. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16169-0_3
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