Globalization And Development Of The Welfare State Essay

American society today has been shaped by years past. After the Second World War, U.S. inhabitants dedicated their lives and time to shape and improve America’s culture to the way it is today. Through the decades of the 1950s and today, the society has changed through scientific and technological advances. On the other hand, aspects of the culture have not changed because its citizens have yet to advance in those areas.

The United States is often referred to as a ‘reluctant welfare state.’ There are various reasons for this description. One of the primary reasons for this is the differences and diversity of the political parties which are the motivating forces that control government. The Liberal Party, for instance supports government safety nets and social service programs for those in need. “Liberals believe in government action to achieve equal opportunity and equality for all.” ("Studentnews," 2006) They believe it is the responsibility of government to ensure that the needs of all citizens are met, and to intervene to solve problems. The responsibility of government is to alleviate social ills, to protect civil liberties and sustain individual

The NHS came around in July 5, 1948. The Health Minister Aneurin (also known as Nye) Bevan purely nationalised the existing system across the UK. The groundbreaking change was to make all services freely available to everyone. Half of Scotland’s landmass was already covered by a state-funded health system serving the entire community and directly run from Edinburgh. Additionally, the war years had seen a state-funded hospital building programme in Scotland on a scale unknown in Europe. This was combined into the new NHS. Scotland also had its own individual medical tradition, this is centred on its medical schools rather than private practice. The legislation that empowered the UK to have the NHS is National Health Service Act (1948), this despite opposition from doctors, who maintained on the right to continue treating some patients privately. The NHS ensured that Doctors, hospital, dentists, opticians, ambulances, midwives and health visitors were available, free to everybody. This Reason why we have health services is because it developments a view that health care was a right, not something given unreliably by charity, also two-party’s agreement that the existing services were in a mess and had to be sorted out, it stopped financial difficulties for the voluntary hospitals and After the second world war it ensured the creation of an emergency medical service as part of the war effort

Today Denmark is one of the most prosperous countries in the world. Unemployment rates are low. Denmark also has low inflation and a surplus on both balance of payments and public expenditure. The World Economic Forum’s 2008 competitiveness index ranks Denmark in its Top Three world-wide. And the World Transparency Index ranks it as the world champion in non-corruption. Furthermore it should be noted that other international comparisons nominate the Danes as the happiest people in the world! Denmark’s success is so impressive.

Throughout the countless pages of history, there exists many occurrences of change. Some of these changes are positive while others are negative. Nevertheless, as each change occurs, it must undergo struggles to become accepted. One example of the struggles of change that is seen in today’s society is the ongoing fight for religious freedom. Another change that is currently facing obstacles is the fight to change policies that raise the question of equality. Lastly, another struggle for change is the conflict that is occurring in order to make same-sex marriage legal. Through the examples of all these changes, there exists the common factor of changing values. As values change, new changes are undertaken. Therefore, changing values entail

The welfare system first came into action during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployed citizens needed federal assistance to escape the reality of severe poverty. The welfare system supplies families with services such as: food stamps, medicaid, and housing among others. The welfare system has played a vital role in the US, in controlling the amount of poverty to a certain level. Sadly, the system has been abused and taken for granted by citizens across the country. The welfare system was previously controlled by the federal government until 1996; the federal government handed over the responsibility to the states in hope of reducing welfare abuse. However, this change has not prevented folks from scamming the system. The

Tocqueville and Marx both argue for an egalitarian modern society, but their idea of equality of modern social order differs, which leads to two distinctive conclusions, democracy for former and communism for latter, which is adopted by different nations in the world. Both social theorists place high importance in analysing the history of society to determine modern social order, but have differing conceptions of history that leads to their contrasting views on the fundamental nature of the capitalist society, and their distinct predictions for the future. This essay will examine Tocqueville’s and Marx’s conceptions of history and through it, understand the nature of capitalist society, and comprehend their predictions for an ideal modern state. Using their analysis, I shall argue that Marx’s prediction of the future is more compelling as compared to Tocqueville.

In America today, just over ten million people are on unemployment insurance, one hundred and ten million people are on welfare, and the total government spending annually is around one hundred and thirty billion dollars (Welfare Statistics). The welfare state is a political system based on the proposition that the government has the individual responsibility to ensure that the minimum standard of living is met for all citizens. Specifically, in the matters of health care, public education, employment, and social security, the welfare state assumes all responsibility. According to John Rawls, “In a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one; analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice“(Rawls). In the 1840s, Otto Von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of Germany, was the father of the modern welfare state. He built the program to win over the support of the working middle class in Germany and ultimately reduce the outflow of immigrants to the U.S., where welfare did not exist (Welfare State). In the United States, not all companies provided workers with benefits, thus the workers appealed to the government, giving rise to the first form of welfare capitalism.

Karl Marx’s critique of political economy provides a scientific understanding of the history of capitalism. Through Marx’s critique, the history of society is revealed. Capitalism is not just an economic system in Marx’s analysis. It’s a “specific social form of labor” that is strongly related to society. Marx’s critique of capitalism provides us a deep

The idea behind the welfare state was to relieve poverty, reduce inequality, and achieve greater

As citizens of the United States, we are members of the leading capitalist economy in the world. Our production and distribution is mostly done privately and we operate in a “profit” or “market” system. The capitalist system has been a target for criticism throughout the last three hundred years and is being discussed now more than ever due to the recent recession and financial crisis (Shaw and Barry n.d., 1). Its effects,

Theorists began to recognize capitalism as pre-industrial society developed economically and major social changes began to occur. Modernization resulted in industrialization, urbanization and bureaucratization as the workplace shifted from the home to the factory, people moved from farms into cities where jobs were more readily available and large-scale formal organizations emerged. Classical theorists’ observations addressed numerous facets of social organization and interaction that came about as a result of modernization; however this essay will focus on their ideas regarding capitalism and the capitalistic society. Over

109,631,000, that is the number of Americans that lived in households that received benefits from one or more federally funded "means-tested programs" — also known as welfare — as of the fourth quarter of 2012, according to data released by the Census Bureau.( Jeffrey 1) This is my objective to tell the history and statistics of the welfare system in the U.S. There is no lack of information on the topic of welfare due to it being a topic of politics in the nation. Accordingly most information I have is from databases and news reports or speeches over it. However a lot of these areas of information can be biased which is something to avoid. To evenly space the information I will supply you with I am going to split it up into two halves. The first half will be the history of welfare and how it affects the country. The second half will be over the statistics and who all is eligible for welfare.

During the early nineteenth century poverty was major issue, the Poor Law passed earlier in the Tudor period put responsibility on local parishes to pay tax to help the poor. However, over the years the financial strain on parishes became too much and in 1834 The Poor Amendment Act was passed. This was to help reduce the cost of looking after the poor and it was to stop the payment of tax unless you had special circumstances. If the poor wanted help they had to go in to workhouses and work, in exchange for clothes, food, free healthcare and a few hours of schooling for children. The poor had no choice but to go in there for help. On one hand The Poor Amendment Act 1834 was good as it gave the poor free food, shelter, healthcare and education for their children. However, the conditions in the work houses were made so awful that people would avoid going in there unless they were really desperate. The diet was bad, families were spilt up and the people in there had to wear uniform.

Capitalism is a subject that can be considered deeply controversial. There are many who tout the benefits that capitalism provides to the economy and the progress of human society. There are others who decry that it is a system which promotes selfish motives and extols profits above honesty and genuine goodness. This essay will examine the claims of each and will reach to conclude the answer to the question “is capitalism good?”