Universalism I: Social Costs and Social Benefits

Abstract

Economic growth is not a problem in economics alone. Titmuss regarded it as deplorable that excessive compartmentalisation had caused the community to neglect the interaction between economic and social policy. Such neglect is a serious matter since there is in fact a ‘fundamental conflict between welfare and economic growth, between economic and social growth’.¹ Recognising the conflict, a collectivity that wants rising standards of living but does not wish to be unjust must therefore be prepared, first, to compensate those of its members who suffer from the social disservices, diswelfares, disutilities and insecurities that result from progress; and, second, to erect that valuable shared infrastructure of essential services which is complementary to growth in the private sector but is not provided by it. This chapter will examine these two reasons for the provision of social benefits to cover social costs in the social and economic thought of Richard Titmuss.