the more successful the state. William Beveridge could assume in the England of his day a high measure of moral accord and civic engagement. Like so many liberals born in the late 19th century, he simply took it for granted that social cohesion was not merely a desirable goal but something of a given. Solidarity—with one’s fellow citizens and with the state itself—pre-existed the welfare institutions which gave it public form.
Even in the United States the concept of trust and the desirability of fellow feeling became central to public policy debate from the 1930s forwards. It is arguable that the remarkable achievement of the US in converting itself from a semi-comatose peacetime economy into the world’s greatest war machine would not have been possible without Roosevelt’s insistence upon the shared interests and purposes and needs of all Americans. If World War II was a ‘good war’, it was not just thanks to the unambiguously awful character of our enemies. It was also because Americans felt good about America—and their fellow Americans.
GREAT SOCIETIES
“Our nation stands for democracy and proper drains.”
—JOHN BETJEMAN
W hat did trust, cooperation, progressive taxation and the interventionist state bequeath to western societies in the decades following 1945? The short answer is, in varying degrees, security, prosperity, social services and greater equality. We have grown accustomed in recent years to the assertion that the price paid for these benefits—in economic inefficiency, insufficient innovation, stifled entrepreneurship, public debt and a loss of private initiative—was too high.
Most of these criticisms are demonstrably false. Measured by the quality and quantity of the social legislation passed in the US between 1932 and 1971, America was unquestionably one of those ‘good societies’; but few would wish to claim that the USA lacked initiative or entrepreneurship in those high, halcyon years of the American Century. But even if it were true that the European social democratic and social service states of the mid-20th century were economically unsustainable, this would not in itself vitiate their claims upon our attention.
Social democracy was always a mongrel politics. In the first place, it blended socialist dreams of a post-capitalist utopia with practical recognition of the need to live and work in a capitalist world that was demonstrably not on its last legs, as Marx had enthusiastically projected back in 1848. But secondly, social democracy took seriously the ‘democracy’ part: in contrast to the revolutionary socialists of the early 20th century and their communist successors, social democrats in free countries accepted the rules of the democratic game and compromised from early on with their critics and opponents as the price of competing for power.
Moreover, social democrats were not uniquely or even primarily interested in economics (in contrast to communists, who always emphasized economics as the measure of Marxist orthodoxy). Socialism for social democrats, especially in Scandinavia, was a distributive concept. It was about making sure that wealth and assets were not disproportionately gathered into the hands of a privileged few. And this, as we have seen, was in essence a moral matter: social democrats, like the 18th century critics of ‘commercial society’, were offended at the consequences of unregulated competition. They were seeking not so much a radical future as a return to the values of a better way of life.
Thus we should not be surprised to learn that an early English social democrat like Beatrice Webb took it for granted that the ‘socialism’ she sought could be parsed as public education, the public provision of health services and medical insurance, public parks and playgrounds, collective provision for the aged, infirm and unemployed and so on. The unity of the pre-modern world, its ‘moral economy’ as E.P. Thompson called
Even in the United States the concept of trust and the desirability of fellow feeling became central to public policy debate from the 1930s forwards. It is arguable that the remarkable achievement of the US in converting itself from a semi-comatose peacetime economy into the world’s greatest war machine would not have been possible without Roosevelt’s insistence upon the shared interests and purposes and needs of all Americans. If World War II was a ‘good war’, it was not just thanks to the unambiguously awful character of our enemies. It was also because Americans felt good about America—and their fellow Americans.
GREAT SOCIETIES
“Our nation stands for democracy and proper drains.”
—JOHN BETJEMAN
W hat did trust, cooperation, progressive taxation and the interventionist state bequeath to western societies in the decades following 1945? The short answer is, in varying degrees, security, prosperity, social services and greater equality. We have grown accustomed in recent years to the assertion that the price paid for these benefits—in economic inefficiency, insufficient innovation, stifled entrepreneurship, public debt and a loss of private initiative—was too high.
Most of these criticisms are demonstrably false. Measured by the quality and quantity of the social legislation passed in the US between 1932 and 1971, America was unquestionably one of those ‘good societies’; but few would wish to claim that the USA lacked initiative or entrepreneurship in those high, halcyon years of the American Century. But even if it were true that the European social democratic and social service states of the mid-20th century were economically unsustainable, this would not in itself vitiate their claims upon our attention.
Social democracy was always a mongrel politics. In the first place, it blended socialist dreams of a post-capitalist utopia with practical recognition of the need to live and work in a capitalist world that was demonstrably not on its last legs, as Marx had enthusiastically projected back in 1848. But secondly, social democracy took seriously the ‘democracy’ part: in contrast to the revolutionary socialists of the early 20th century and their communist successors, social democrats in free countries accepted the rules of the democratic game and compromised from early on with their critics and opponents as the price of competing for power.
Moreover, social democrats were not uniquely or even primarily interested in economics (in contrast to communists, who always emphasized economics as the measure of Marxist orthodoxy). Socialism for social democrats, especially in Scandinavia, was a distributive concept. It was about making sure that wealth and assets were not disproportionately gathered into the hands of a privileged few. And this, as we have seen, was in essence a moral matter: social democrats, like the 18th century critics of ‘commercial society’, were offended at the consequences of unregulated competition. They were seeking not so much a radical future as a return to the values of a better way of life.
Thus we should not be surprised to learn that an early English social democrat like Beatrice Webb took it for granted that the ‘socialism’ she sought could be parsed as public education, the public provision of health services and medical insurance, public parks and playgrounds, collective provision for the aged, infirm and unemployed and so on. The unity of the pre-modern world, its ‘moral economy’ as E.P. Thompson called
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