Class, Capital and Social Policy

The establishment and growth of the welfare state have had profound consequences in all areas of social and political life. But while working-class struggle has provided the impetus for its development, its administrative and policy forms have been shaped primarily by the needs of capital. In Class, Capital and Social Policy, Norman Ginsburg analyses the origins and functions of social security and housing policies from the nineteenth century to the present day and argues that their primary role has been to reproduce the labour reserve army, the patriarchal family and a disciplined labour force. Only secondarily and contingently has state welfare functioned as a means of mitigating poverty and providing secure and adequate accommodation.

The author's most significant contribution to the understanding of the welfare state lies in his detailed account of the precise ways in which welfare administration can be shown to reflect the balance of class forces within society as a whole. In particular, he is able to produce compelling evidence that while organised working class power has influenced the administration of some aspects of welfare at the local level, this has been continuously counteracted by the growth of the state bureaucracy. The characteristics of this bureaucracy - scientific management. professionalism, corporate planning and the rest - he argues can only be understood as specifically related to the demands of, and crisis in, capitalist development.

Norman Ginsburg concludes that fundamental social change in favour of the working class will not be achieved through administrative reform within the State. but through political struggle against it.