Keywords

1 Introduction

This chapter examines the issue of poverty by using the method of the history of political thought. The history of political thought is the study of what has been said and written about politics in the past and the relationship between the political text and the social context of the same period, using the methods of history, philosophy, and political studies. Poverty is one of the most common political issues as it requires redistribution of resources through collective decision-making. Therefore, it is also one of the main themes in the history of political thought along with economics, sociology, social policy and other disciplines of social science.

The subject of this chapter is poverty in developed countries. How has the issue of domestic poverty been discussed in economically rich countries? What discourses encourage or hinder government response to poverty? These questions will be addressed in examining the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Britain as a case study, where society’s perception of poverty underwent a major shift.

The nature of poverty in developed countries differs from that in developing countries because relative poverty is more central to the problem than absolute poverty. While absolute poverty refers to the inability to meet basic human needs such as food and shelter, relative poverty refers to a situation in which although people can obtain the basic requirements they have difficulty living at a level appropriate in light of the overall cultural and living standards of a specific society.

The common method used by international organizations (such as OECD) and many individual countries to measure relative poverty is to set the poverty line at 50% or 60% of a country’s median income and consider any income status below this line to be in relative poverty. People in this income situation are placed in a state of what sociologist Peter Townsend once called “relative deprivation”, which is defined as a situation in which individuals “lack the resources to obtain the types of diet, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities that are customary, or are at least widely encouraged or approved, in the societies to which they belong.” (Townsend 1979, 31). For instance, in contemporary Japanese society, this income situation makes it hard for a family with children to buy them new clothes and shoes every season, take a family trip every year, or let them join in local club activities, all of which are “customary” in contemporary Japan.

We should not consider absolute poverty as a more serious problem than relative poverty. Nor should we view these two as opposites. The two types of poverty are, in fact, often mutually interpenetrating in both theory and reality. For example, the concept of absolute poverty refers to the inability to meet basic human needs, but some researchers have pointed out that it should include not only physical but also social and psychological needs. (Lister 2004, 28) Similarly, according to economist Amartya Sen, avoidance of shame or stigma should be considered one of the basic human needs, while it is often the result of a state of relative deprivation (Sen 1992). In Sen’s view, relative poverty deprives individuals of absolute human needs such as self-esteem, participation in normal social life, and opportunities to develop their abilities. Therefore, relative poverty in developed countries should also be considered a major social challenge for the first goal of the SDGs, which is to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere”.

Studies comparing relative poverty rates in developed countries and the factors contributing to their reduction have pointed to a correlation between relative poverty rates and the size of the welfare state (i.e., the size of the government’s social spending and tax system) (Brady 2005). The general trend is that “countries with the largest welfare states typically have the lowest post-transfer poverty rates.” (Moller et al. 2003, 28) The welfare state refers to the political system of modern industrialized societies that are equipped with social policies for ensuring citizens’ minimum standard of living as well as for keeping wealth inequality within an ethically acceptable range. In the 1940s and the 1950s, after the Second World War, the welfare state was fully established in developed countries. However, the origins of the social policies established during that period date back to the turn of the century, at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. In developed countries, the contradictions of the capitalist economy, such as poverty, economic inequality, and cyclical economic depression, deepened during this period, and calls for regulation of the market economy grew stronger. As a result, there was a common expansion of social policies, such as the introduction of old-age pensions, medical and unemployment insurances, and social assistances by governments (Pierson 1991).

Among various political, economic and social factors for the development of the welfare state, the history of political thought has often paid attention to the dimension of ideology. As a set of certain ethical and political beliefs about human beings and society deeply rooted in the value of individuals, ideology is key cultural apparatus for mobilizing political actors such as political parties, bureaucrats and various associations in civil society for a certain direction of policy outcomes (Freeden 2003). When it comes to poverty, how it is interpreted by the dominant ideology within a particular society is an important factor that influences the welfare practices of that society.

In the process of the formation and restructuring of the welfare state from the nineteenth century to the present, three major ideologies have discussed poverty differently. The first is liberal ideology. It holds that self-helping individuals can overcome poverty and that government social security is usually counterproductive because it takes away the spirit of self-help. Second, there is exclusionist ideology. It prioritizes the defense of social order over the welfare of the individual, believing that since poverty is associated with crime and delinquency, what is needed is not support, but segregation of the poor.Footnote 1 Third, there is social democratic ideology. It holds that poverty is caused by structural factors beyond individual self-help efforts and that government social spending and wealth redistribution are important to eliminate poverty. Analyzing the shift in dominant ideology among these three will help us examine what is needed to encourage the expansion and redistribution of welfare in developed countries. As a typical historical case, this chapter will focus on British politics in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries. In the nineteenth century, after the Industrial Revolution, liberal ideology prevailed in Britain against the backdrop of the establishment of a free trade system. However, from the end of the century to the beginning of the twentieth century, when poverty became a serious social problem, there was an increase in both exclusionist and social democratic ideologies. What is noteworthy in the history of British political thought afterwards is that against this backdrop, liberalism chose to embrace some elements of social democratic ideologies and managed to maintain its position as the dominant ideology. This led to the formation of the liberal welfare state in twentieth century Britain, resulting in a considerable reduction in the poverty rate. In the following sections, I will clarify how it was possible for British liberalism.

2 Liberalism and Poverty in the Nineteenth Century

In the nineteenth century, liberalism became the dominant ideology in Britain. The early part of the Victorian era (1837–1901) saw working-class movements for political rights (Chartism), but they remained within the framework of constitutionalist liberalism and did not lead to a socialist movement. Liberalism developed in terms of economic liberalism endorsing a free-market economy, and ethical liberalism endorsing self-help value. Classical economist David Ricard, who was called the “high priest of the capitalist middle class” (Fraser 2017, 115), theoretically justified the significance of free trade and the futility of trade unionism.

At these times, political thought on poverty was also based on liberal ideology. The central tenet was that the government should refrain from providing the able-bodied poor with outdoor relief in order not to encourage idleness. This doctrine was reflected in the amendment to the Poor Law of 1834.Footnote 2 The amendment emphasized the importance of differentiating between the poor according to their ability to work. While those who were considered unable to work (such as the elderly, disabled, and children without relatives) were to be protected in specialized facilities, those capable of working were to be placed in workhouses and forced to work. Moreover, the principle of “less eligibility” was introduced for the latter type, which stated that the environment in the workhouse should be deliberately worse than that outside the facility. The purpose was to provide incentives for the able-bodied poor to refrain from resorting to the Poor Law and to overcome poverty through the spirit of self-help. Loss of suffrage was also a condition for entering the workhouse. In short, the revised Poor Law guaranteed the survival of the poor on the condition that they accepted the stigma of being second-class citizens.

Outside the workhouses, the 1850s and the 1860s were what historian Eric Hobsbawm called the “golden years of the mid-Victorians,” with “a large-scale transfer of labor from worse- to better-paid jobs,” “the general sense of improvement in living standards,” and “the lowering of social tension” (Hobsbawm 1968, 118). Poverty remained a minor problem, and working-class values were significantly affected by those of the middle class. The influence of liberal ideology can be seen in the fact that Samuel Smiles’ Self-Help (1859) became the best-seller. The beginning of the book is a good example of the spirit of self-help on which liberalism relied:

“Heaven helps those who help themselves” is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual, and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigor and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. (Smiles 1876, 1)

It was only in the 1890s that poverty became a social issue attracting the attention across class boundaries. The long depression of the 1870s and its political consequences in the 1880s were also significant. Amid Britain’s economic and political turbulence, liberal ideology faced a crisis during this period. Historian Stedman Jones summarizes the factors that contributed to the crisis of liberal ideology after the 1870s:

[T]he crisis was composed of four elements: a severe cyclical depression as the culmination of six or seven years of indifferent trade; the structural decline of certain of the older central industries; the chronic shortage of working-class housing in the inner industrial perimeter; and the emergence of socialism and various forms of ‘collectivism’ as a challenge to traditional liberal ideology. (Stedman-Jones 2013, p. 281)

With the development of heavy industry in Germany and the U.S., the share of British key industries such as coal and steel in world trade weakened from the 1870s, leading to periodic recessions. Combined with the lack of housing welfare, the recession hit the lower working class hard, reducing many to street-dwellers. The “visualization” of poverty was also backed up by statistics. Full-scale social surveys were conducted by Charles Booth in London and Seebohm Rountree in York to clarify the reality of poverty in the urban areas. Both showed that about 30% of the population of London and York lived in poverty (Booth 1889, 1891; Rowntree 1901). Finally, a more immediate threat to liberal ideology was the emergence of exclusionist and social democratic ideologies, which rejected the doctrine of economic liberalism.

3 Poverty and Ideologies in Turn-of-Century Britain

3.1 Poverty and Exclusionist Ideology

The first nonliberal ideology of poverty at the turn of the century was exclusionism. Exclusionism here refers to the position that posits “deviant others” within society, attributes the causes of social problems to them, and advocates their social exclusion. As opposed to liberalism’s laissez-faire doctrine, it advocated collectivist interventions in impoverished areas. However, what was advocated was not social policies for the poor but segregation policies that targeted specific “deviant” groups among the poor.

One of the reasons for the growing influence of the “segregate the poor” discourse was the growing interest in eugenics. Founded by Charles Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton (1822–1911), eugenics was an emerging science that aimed to apply on humans the themes of evolution and heredity evolutionary biologists had studied in animals.Footnote 3 Based on the premise that all human traits, such as intelligence, physical ability, and stature, are largely inherited, Galton attempted to elucidate the mechanism of inheritance using statistical methods. He then coined the term “eugenics” as the “science which deals with all the influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race” (Galton 1904, 1) with the idea that social progress can be brought about when people with superior traits marry and reproduce.Footnote 4

While Galton himself emphasized “positive eugenics,” that is, increasing the population of people with “superior qualities”, the next generation of eugenicists focused on “negative eugenics,” which aimed to prevent the transmission of “inferior qualities” to the next generation. In the case of Britain, the central target was the poor, especially the lowest rung of the working class, known as the “pauper class.” The exclusionist discourse recognized that the lives of the paupers were fraught with security and public health problems, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, crime, infectious diseases, and problems stemming from inherent moral defects.

The aforementioned Charles Booth, for example, also held a similar view of the poor. Booth divided the people of the East End into eight classes according to their employment status and income situation and found that half of them (four classes, or approximately 35% of the population) were living in poverty.

  • Class A: The lowest grade/occasional laborers, loafers, and semi-criminals. 1¼% of East Londoners (11,000 people).

  • Class B: Very poor/casual earnings. 11¼% (100,000).

  • Class C: Ordinary poverty/intermittent earnings. 8% (75,000).

  • Class D: Mixed with poverty/small regular earnings. 14½% (129,000).

  • Class E: Working-class comfort/standard regular earnings/above the Poverty Line. 42% (377,000).

  • Class F: Well to do/higher class labour. 13½% (121,000).

  • Class G: Wealthy/lower middle class. 4% (34,000).

  • Class H: Upper middle class. 5% (45,000).

  • (Wise 2008, 151).

Booth then drew a line between upper two of the four poor classes (classes C and D), whose poverty could be eliminated by government social policies, and lower two classes (classes A and B) that should be subject to security and segregation policies. Of these, there was considerable overlap between the employment of classes B and C in terms of low wages and irregular employment (B had more day labor, while C had longer contracts but still more irregular employment). The key indicator that separates the two, according to Booth, is the presence or absence of moral character.

Booth saw Class C as having sufficient moral character for a citizen, but inferior in terms of ability. On the other hand, Booth leveled moral indictment against Class B. The majority of Class B was “shiftless, helpless, idle or drunkards” who “cannot stand the regularity and dullness of civilized existence, and find the excitement they need in the life of the streets”. (Wise 2008, 153) Booth thus considered environmental factors such as economy and employment to not affect poverty among Class B and Class A. Because “it is doubtful if many of them could, or would, work full time and for long together, if they had the opportunity. “Booth also saw that the employment situation of class C worsened due to the presence of class B, which accounted for more than 10% of the East Londoners, and this promoted poverty among class C. Considering the seriousness of poverty, especially in old age (he calculated that as much as 45% of the entire working class would be dependent on the Poor Law after the age of 65), Booth called for the introduction of a non-contributory old-age pension system for the working class. At the same time, he advocated that Class A be subject to security policies and Class B be subject to segregation and incarceration in local labor colonies. (Wise 2008, 161–162).

The turn of the century was also a time of widespread anxiety around the future of British society. The unexpectedly hard-fought imperialist war in South Africa (the Second Boer War, 1899–1902), and the apparent physical weakness of the volunteer labor force there, led to widespread fears that Britain was “degenerating” militarily and biologically as well. (Thane 1996, 55–56) Social unrest was also reinforced by class disparities in fertility rates. The fact that overall fertility rates in Britain were declining, especially among the middle class, compared to the working class, increased public interest in eugenics. Galton’s disciple Karl Pearson famously pointed out in 1897 that 50% of the next generation would be born from 20 to 25% of the married population (Soloway 1990, 12). Pearson believed that while the poor had a high birth rate, they were physically frail and much of the frailty was hereditary.Footnote 5 Many eugenicists of the time, including Pearson, thus strongly criticized social policies for giving rise to “reverse selection,” that is, the survival of the unfit. As long as the problem was biological and genetic, social policies aimed at improving the welfare of the poor were considered futile.

British eugenicists also noted that many of the poor seemed to have mild intellectual disabilities. (Mazumdar 1991, 257) Unlike those with moderate and severe intellectual disabilities, who had been housed in public and private institutions since the early years of the nineteenth century, milder intellectual disability, or “feeble-mindedness,” as was called then, became prevalent among school children and the unskilled working class at the end of the nineteenth century, when primary education became compulsory. In 1913, the Mental Deficiency Act was passed, which legalized forcible institutionalization of those “mentally deficient” among the poor who did not have family or relatives. This law reinforced the stigma of the poor as a whole and entrenched the policy of segregating those with intellectual disabilities for more than half a century.

3.2 Poverty and Liberal Ideology 1: The Charity Organization Society

Eugenics, which constructed the exclusionist ideology of poverty at the turn of the century, expanded its influence among the intellectual elite in the early twentieth century, one consequence of which was the formation of the Eugenics Education Society in 1907. The Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 is said to be the greatest success story of British eugenics. However, unlike the United States and Germany, which legislated such eugenic policies as forced sterilization and restrictions on marriage and immigration, the influence of British eugenics was limited to segregation. As opposed to the US and Germany, where race was the focus of eugenics, British eugenicists placed the issue of poverty at the center of their discourse leading to a backlash from the working class people who were at a higher risk of falling into poverty. When eugenicists later campaigned for the enactment of a sterilization law targeting the feeble-minded among the poor, it was the Labour Party, with its supporters in the working class that firmly opposed this as a class discriminatory legislation. (Thomson 1998).

At the turn of the century, the British working class, especially the upper working class, continued to prefer to deal with the risk of poverty through the spirit of self-help. From the second half of the nineteenth century onward, they also formed friendly societies at work and in the community, along with organizing trade unions. Friendly societies were a system of mutual aid that uses the accumulation of contributions to provide a certain amount of income in the event of illness or injury. Maintaining and improving employment conditions through trade unions and shielding against poverty through the mutual insurance scheme among friendly societies became the central methods of self-help practices in the working class. (Fraser 2017, 121–125).

Liberal ideology also maintained a certain influence on the practice of charity for the already impoverished. The Charity Organization Society (COS), founded in London in 1869, emphasized the practice of casework as the best way to find appropriate support for each individual’s circumstances, based on the belief that the key to assisting the poor was to help them rebuild their capacities of self-help. Bernard Bosanquet (1848–1923), a philosopher and one of the brains behind COS, expressed this as “help people to help themselves” (Bosanquet 1907, 1999, 218). COS’s casework had a great influence on the subsequent charity practice of poverty alleviation. The number of COS’ national branches and collaborating organizations grew from 12 in 1875 to 145 in 1914 (Humphreys 2001, 134). The core members of the London COS also influenced the government’s welfare administration by serving the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded (1904–1908) and the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress (1905–1909).

The COS was organized in response to the realization that existing unprofessional charities that did not use the casework method contributed to dependency of the poor and exacerbated poverty. An example can be found in Bernard Bosanquet’s criticism of William Booth, a minister who founded the Salvation Army in 1878 and provided free meals and lodges to the poor. Bosanquet was convinced that poverty could not be eradicated by simply focusing on the misery of the phenomenon and providing material support. To eradicate poverty, it is important to determine, through observation and interviews, the extent to which poor individuals have the will to help themselves and the knowledge and skills to effectively practice that will. Material support such as medical and financial assistance may be suitable only for people and families, with the appropriate will and skills, who may temporarily be in poverty due to illness or injury. On the other hand, for those who are willing to help themselves but for the lack of knowledge and skills, social and psychological support such as lifestyle advice and referral to local mutual aid organizations may be more effective. Finally, for those who do not seem to have the will to help themselves at the moment, the best thing would be to suggest them to go to a workhouse, as giving them aid may encourage dependence. Based on COS’ “Science of Charity” principle (Himmelfarb 1991, 185), Bosanquet concluded that William Booth’s material aid would only increase the number of paupers and exacerbated the problem of poverty:

I ask you, as sensible men, which is hardship and which is the cruel course? To proceed in such a way that, as a rule, all workmen in fairly regular work will be members of good, sound clubs, so that this particular form of suffering from illness destroying a man’s power to work, will be entirely checked, or to wait until a man is broken down by illness and starvation, and then induce him to enter a charitable refuge with workshops attached, and to become a workman half-living on charity, and in all probability a permanent semi-pauper, who will never feel his own man again so long as he lives? (Bosanquet 1891, 1999, 34)

Using the same logic, the COS also opposed the government’s proposed pension system, which had been under consideration since the 1890s. Charles Booth and Fabian socialist Sidney Webb were its leading advocates. On the one hand, Booth and Webb advocated segregation for paupers who could be considered morally corrupt, but on the other hand, they were concerned that “respectable” workers would also be destitute in old age due to structural problems such as low wages and unemployment. The government pension system, they argued, would allow workers to maintain their livelihoods in old age without resorting to the stigmatizing Poor Law. (Webb 1891; Booth 1899).

Charles Loch (1849–1923), the secretary of the London COS, boldly opposed Booth and Webb’s public pension plan. The introduction of pensions would reduce the fear of distress in old age and  thus eliminate the incentive to prepare for the future. The customary practice by children of providing for elderly parents would also disappear. (Loch 1895, 157, 159) For COS, the expansion of social policies by the state, as well as indiscriminate private charity, was a misguided measure that weakened the will to self-help. The government’s relief measure should thus be limited to the Poor Law. For it would give an incentive for the able-bodied to regain the spirit of self-help through the workhouse principle of less eligibility. COS members shared the understanding that the division of roles between the Poor Law and organized charity would bring about a vibrant civil society of self-reliant individuals.

Thus, both eugenics-based exclusionism and the liberal ideology of the COS were negative towards the expansion of government social policies. The difference between them lies in their degree of faith in the potential of the individual. Contrary to Charles Booth and the eugenicists, who pointed out the hereditary problematic nature of the paupers and targeted them for segregation, the mainstream COS members saw every individual as having the potential for self-reliance. Thus, Bosanquet stated that it is important to hope for the possibility of recovery for individuals who do not currently have the will to be independent: ‘All that can with truth be said is, that absence of any indication of self-help is a very serious element in judging of a man’s position; it does not follow that the missing habit cannot be stimulated, and if it can, or if, in short, the man appears curable, then the attempt should be made to cure him.’ (Bosanquet 1891, 1999, 34–35).

3.3 Poverty and Liberal Ideology 2: Formation of the New Liberalism

The core members of the COS, including Loch and Bosanquet, had faith in the potential morality of individuals, including the dependent needy. However, at the turn of the century, the COS’ casework approach which involved intrusion into poor families’ privacy and frequent dismissal of support came under fire from working class families and other social welfare practitioners (Humphreys 2001, 161–173). By that time the most politically influential discourse on poverty had shifted from COS’ “self-help” liberalism into “new liberalism,” which highlighted the expansion of government social policies. By the time of World War I, new liberalism had succeeded in gaining broad political support from the political elite to the working class and laid the foundation for the British welfare state. How was this possible?

Of primary importance in understanding the background to the emergence of new liberalism is the expansion of social democratic ideology since the 1880s, or what contemporary historian Max Beer called the “Revival of Socialism‘ (Beer 1920). From the 1880s onward, with the economic depression and a growing interest in issues related to poverty, poor unskilled workers formed trade unions supported by newly organized socialist groups such as the Fabian Society and the Independent Labour Party. What these movements and organizations had in common were a parliamentary democracy line aimed at establishing a socialist society through the growth of a working-class party in parliamentFootnote 6 and a social policy line that sought to protect worker’s rights through labor and welfare legislation. These two lines gave the mainstream British socialist movements the characteristics of social democracy rather than of revolutionary socialism.

The growth of social democratic ideology posed a threat to liberals, and by the end of the century, the “crisis of liberalism” was being widely discussed (Freeden 1978). Among them, some younger liberal politicians and intellectuals started to argue that liberalism should become more reform-minded an ideology. They attempted to gain broad support for liberalism from the working class by partially embracing social democratic (or socialist, more broadly speaking) ideology. One typical strategy was to use the rhetoric that “the best elements of socialism had been already manifested in liberalism in the past”. As an example, let us examine the discourse of L. T. Hobhouse (1864–1929), who was the editor-in-chief of the Manchester Guardian and Britain’s first professor of sociology. Hobhouse argued that the primary aims of socialism were the correction of power inequalities between labor and management and the protection of the welfare of all citizens, and that such aims had already been present in the arguments of Richard Cobden, the leader of the Anti-Corn Law League (Hobhouse 1904: 212–214). Hobhouse also emphasized that the goal of socialism had not been state interference per se, but the realization of social justice and freedom, something which had been expressed in the “Socialist ideal” of J. S. Mill, the great liberal thinker of the nineteenth century (Hobhouse 1911, 115). This excavation of history and delimitation of the meaning of socialism led to the rejection of other socialist ideologies such as Marxism and Fabianism: Calling the former “mechanical socialism” and the latter “official socialism” and criticizing the unethical nature of both, Hobhouse proclaimed that “Liberal Socialism” be considered the “true socialism” (Hobhouse 1911, 167–174).

New liberalism also provided a discourse in social science and social philosophy to justify the expansion of taxes and social policies by the government. New liberal economist J. A. Hobson (1858–1943), for example, pointed out that the uneven distributional structure of the current capitalist economy resulted in excessive savings by the rich and under-consumption by the poor. This so-called underconsumption theory, which anticipated the Keynesian macro-economic theory, argued that the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor through taxes and social policies would stimulate domestic demand and bring about economic recovery (Allett 1981). Hobson also criticized COS’s social philosophy as based on “sheer monadism” which he thought would overemphasize the spirit of individual self-help. For Hobson, both COS, which emphasizes the character of the individual, and social democracy, which accentuates the structure of society, are inadequate because they capture only the opposite side of the truth:

The Charity Organisation philosophy, crystallised for in the single phrase “in social reform, then, character is the condition of conditions,” represents a mischievous half-truth, the other half of which rests in the possession of the less thoughtful section of the Social Democrats and forms the basis of the cruder Socialism. Neither individual character nor environment is “the condition of conditions.” The true principle that should replace these half-falsehoods is the recognition of the interdependence and interaction of individual character and social character as expressed in the social environment. (Hobson 1909, 206−207).

Both Hobson and Hobhouse saw society as an organism with structural aspects that could not be reduced to individual personalities. While maintaining the core tenet of liberalism that individuals should lead independent lives by exercising their individuality and capabilities, they argued that economic justice must be actualized in order for individuals to fully realize themselves. Here, economic justice means that everyone, including the poor, should have equal opportunities for self-realization as a fundamental right. To ensure equality of opportunity, it is not enough to save the poor through private charity, which tends to be uneven and limited in their support. Instead, the role of the government is crucial in guaranteeing equality of opportunity as its citizens’ social right  by providing universal services through law and taxation. Thus, new liberalism used the traditional liberal discourse of individual rights to justify the expansion of government social policies and redistribution. (Freeden 1978; Terao 2016)

New liberalism, which combined the liberal discourse of individual rights with the social democratic discourse of increased government taxation and social welfare, succeeded in winning broad support among the working class and contributed to the Liberal Party’s sweeping victory in the 1906 general election (Clarke 1971). Under the Liberal government, which lasted until 1915, a series of social welfare reform known as the “Liberal Reform,” were implemented, including the introduction of free school meals (1906), a workers’ compensation system (1906), free medical examinations for children (1907), old-age pensions (1908), creation of labor exchanges (1909), and the introduction of medical and unemployment insurances (1911). Furthermore, David Lloyd George, a new liberal politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer during the Liberal Reform, proposed a new tax system called the “People’s Budget” to finance welfare reform. It targeted the upper classes who owned a large sum of wealth by increasing the progressivity of income, land, and inheritance taxes, while favoring middle-class taxpayers with incomes of up to 1000 pounds per year. (Clarke 1996, 87) Although the People’s Budget was opposed by the House of Lords and the Conservative Party, it did gain broad support from the middle and working classes and was passed in 1910, along with a parliamentary reform bill which significantly reduced the power of the House of Lords.

Between the end of World War I and the end of World War II, one wing of the two-party system that opposed the Conservative Party shifted from the Liberal Party to the Labour Party. At first glance, it might seem that ideological conflict in British politics shifted from conservatism versus liberalism to conservatism versus social democracy. However, during the brief interwar period of the Labour government, forced as it was to respond to the Great Depression, few social democratic policies were implemented. When the Labour government came to power again in 1945 after World War II and the formation of the British welfare state began in earnest, it was not social democrats but two new liberals, J.M. Keynes and William Beveridge, who formed the theoretical backbone of postwar economic and social policies. In Britain, as in other countries, the expansion of social democratic ideology provided the impetus for the government to expand social welfare and redistribute wealth. However, as historian Chris Renwick points out, in Britain, above all, “liberalism was woven into the welfare state’s identity” (Renwick 2017, 9).

4 Conclusion

After World War II, the discourse on new liberalism succeeded in becoming the dominant ideology of British politics on poverty. Based on the welfare restructuring plan of the new liberal thinker Beveridge, the postwar Labour government introduced free medical care, expansion of public housing, development of social insurance and public assistance systems, and free secondary education. By the 1950s, the problem of poverty had reduced its seriousness considerably compared to the pre-war period. Seebohm Rountree, who once conducted a poverty survey in York City in 1899 and concluded that 27.8% of the city’s population was in poverty, conducted a follow-up survey in 1950. He concluded that the poverty rate had now been reduced to 1.66% thanks to the government’s social policies, such as pensions and employment policies (Scott 1994).

However, the subsequent history of the British welfare state is far the end of poverty. In the 1970s, sociologist Peter Townsend criticized existing studies on poverty, which focused only on absolute poverty. He showed that poverty in British society was still serious from the perspective of relative deprivation, thus deepening academic awareness of poverty (Townsend 1979). The relative poverty rate in the UK, which is calculated to be 60% or less of the median income, has never fallen below 20% to date. On the other hand, since the 1970s, there has been a growing self-help inclined and/or exclusionist discourse that sees the persistence of poverty as a result of individual moral failings and the deviant culture of the poor rather than a problem of social structure. An influential speech from such an individualistic perspective was made in the early 1970s by Sir Keith Joseph, the Minister of Health in the Conservative government, on the “cycle of deprivation,” which reduced poverty to a culture of moral failure reproduced by the individuals composing of the “problem families” (Welshman 2005). Margaret Thatcher, who would later become Prime Minister, also stated clearly in 1978 that “poverty is not material but behavioral.” (Jones 2020, 64) This kind of self-help inclined and/or exclusionist discourse has continued since the 1980s, in line with the New Right’s critique of the welfare state as promoting dependency culture. (Dean and Taylor-Goody 1992) Since the financial crisis of 2008, the demonization of the poor has continued among conservative politicians and the media in their emphasis of austerity over social welfare (Shildrick 2018).

This chapter examined the reasons why welfare-state-oriented discourse was able to exert political influence in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Britain by sketching several key political arguments about poverty at the turn of the century. Some points can be noted in the conclusion.

First, ideology matters. We saw that three different ideologies (liberalism, exclusionism, and social democracy) interpreted the same phenomenon of poverty very differently. Some emphasized the resilience of the poor themselves, some placed blame on them, still others explained poverty in terms of factors in the environment surrounding the poor. Different interpretations of poverty led to differences in treatment toward the poor, and so studying ideologies should be taken seriously as a way of finding out why one type of political and social practice rather than others becomes influential in a specific society at a specific time.

Second, it was not social democracy per se but liberalism with social democratic elements that encouraged the formation of the welfare state in Britain. Given the deep roots of liberalism throughout the nineteenth century, the importance of this point cannot be overemphasized. If liberal ideology had been confined to the COS-style emphasis on self-help while welfare-state ideology had been to socialist organizations, it is unlikely that the welfare state would have gained broad political support during the Liberal Reform period and afterwards. The extent to which a specific ideology can be associated with the dominant ideology already rooted in a society – that is, the extent to which an ideology can take into account cultural path dependence–largely determines the extent of political support it can gain.

Third, it is noteworthy that new liberalism was able to construct a diverse and systematic welfare state discourse that spanned social policy, science, philosophy, and journalism. The social policy proposals of new liberal politicians were given a scientific and philosophical credentials by new liberal intellectuals such as J. A. Hobson and L. T. Hobhouse. In addition, their ideas were communicated to a wide range of citizens by means of media outlets such as newspapers and pamphlets (Weiler 1982). Neither eugenics, COS, nor socialism at the turn of the century could as effectively develop complementary practices, theories, and philosophies to communicate with the public. The ability to be an inclusive political entity was what gave new liberal ideology its persuasiveness and popular appeal.

In conclusion, there are two factors that make an ideology powerful enough to drive a particular political practice, including poverty alleviation: (1) adaptation to cultural path dependence and (2) the creation of a comprehensive discourse. Creation of a strong ideology is one of the essential conditions in achieving not only one but all of the goals of the SDGs.