What is the Welfare State? A Sociological Restatement
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- Опубликовано: 11 ноя 2014
- Speakers: Professor David Garland, Professor Nicola Lacey
Chair: Professor Craig Calhoun
Recorded on 10 November 2014 in Old Theatre, Old Building.
What, in fact, is the Welfare State? Commentators talk as if it were an historic moment in post-war Britain or New Deal America. Academics discuss “the death of the social” and a shift “from social state to penal state” as if it had been displaced by neo-liberalism. This lecture traces the emergence of the welfare state as a specific mode of government, describing its distinctive rationality as well as its forms, functions and effects. It explains why the welfare state is now a “normal social fact” - an essential (though constantly contested) part of the social and economic organisation of advanced industrial societies.
David Garland is Professor of Sociology at NYU and Shimizu Visiting Professor at LSE Law.
Nicola Lacey is School Professor of Law, Gender and Social Policy at LSE.
Professor Craig Calhoun is the Director of LSE.
LSE Law (@LSELaw) is an integral part of the School's mission, plays a major role in policy debates & in the education of lawyers and law teachers from around the world.
If I had not desired so much to understand this presentation (I need to for a debating contest) much of this talk may have gone over my head. However, thankfully I see that this is a valuable and enlightening talk, well presented. I think society needs to focus on 'corporate welfare' - how corporations are allowed to make vast fortunes and if they go bust or screw-up (such as banking institutions) they shoudnt always be just bailed out. I think there should be a cap or some limits put on how much profit a company can make, on monopolies and special interests bribing politicians. This is where our attention needs to go in order to create a fairer and more just society !
+farrelco I do not understand how a cap of profits will actually change anything important. The problem is and always will be distribution.
+Dovenpeis Well a cap on profits = distribution. For example if large corporations such as McDonalds or Exxon Mobil or Halliburton were only allowed to keep 50% of the gross profits, the rest would be taken by government and redistributed to say Africa, where people are starving and have no electricity to even live a respectable life. Of course how is anyone going to make Halliburton etc. do this ? I don't know. But something like this should be done. The problem is many of these huge corporations CEOs are revolving doors to government so you are dealing with a political-corporate elite who just look out for their own interests. 'Corporate welfare' is a big problem, where too big to fail banks etc are bailed out when they lose money.
+farrelco So you will rather use profits from American companies on Africa, and by Africa I am guessing you mean Africa south of Sahara and the home world of that particular race, rather than Americans? God knows I fucking hate Liberals! White people are starving too, in the United States. And whether or not electricity is necessary to live a respectable life is dependent on what is normal in the society in which you live. In Africa, electricity is not a normal thing to have just because it is so in the rest of the developed world and in the White World in particular, which means not having electricity in Africa is not so much of a problem than it would be in say the United States, where having electricity is the norm. I hate it when ignorant Liberals deliberately chose to forget about the often times much worse relative poverty in the Developed World, and especially in the United States, which has one the worst problems of relative poverty in the White World.
Besides, corporate welfare is often the lesser evil of letting a huge corporation, whose hundreds of thousands of people depend on for their livelihood, fail. For instance, letting a big ass bank fail has the very real potential of destroying the economy of an entire country, even one as big as the United States. You see, this one of the reasons I hate Liberals. They are so ridiculously obsessed with the differences between the super rich/CEOs and everybody else. In reality, however, the one percent does not mean anything on any level. Their lives, and their lifestyle in particular, does not in any way affect the average Joe.
It is neither the super rich nor the CEOs who create relative poverty. Relative poverty is created by the differences between the middle class and those below. In reality, the income discrepancy between the upper middle class, the middle class, the lower middle class, the working class and the lumpen proletariat is much more important than the Liberal’s fetish for the one percent. The reason is because it is the ninety nine percent that is the foundation for relative poverty, not the one percent.
Moreover, the problems that do exist with the one percent cannot be solved with redistribution. Not even communism managed to do that. Any problems with the one percent have to be solved through democracy, which means giving more democratic control over economic decisions important to society.
+Dovenpeis Firstly I am sorry you are so full of hate. I am a bit irritated that I have been thrown into a box called 'liberals' but if thats how your brain deciphers the world then theres not a lot I can do to change that. I am a spiritual being having a human experience. Thats how I define myself. I know many of you Americans are obsessed with defining each other as 'liberal' or 'conservative' and thats how your rulers have divided and conquered you for many years.
Secondly, I was only making a general suggestion, duh! I'm beginning to think you are about 18-25 years old because older people would tend to notice what I was saying and not get all offended and defensive.
(Hey try and go a day without using electricity and see how much fun it is. Hopefully you have a river nearby to wash yourself and your clothes. Many people in Africa have this experience daily. And now the global warming fanatics tell Africa they are not allowed to touch their fossil fuels. We can, but they cant. Humph ! Sounds fair to me!!)
I was merely suggesting that companies (not necessarily American) who make large profits and have a clear surplus should either hand some of it back to the poor community or be obliged to reinvest it in some positive way. I already said I have no grand solution as to how this can be done. Yes of course there are poor marginalised people in America too. Why dont you write a letter to some big American companies and ask them to help out disadvantaged communities in America? You seem quite passionate about it so go ahead and do it. Stop hating and put your frustrations to action.
The robber barons of the past such as the Rockefellars and other Oil Kingpins became so wealthy that they had more money than entire countries!. Many of them decided it was their perogative to decide people's future. This is what I abhor. So I disagree with you on the 1%. I think there is very little difference between the classes today. Many people who appear to be upper middle class actually have very little money!
I dont think it is possible to forcibly take money from the super rich. What I would suggest is that the governments should make it more difficult going forward for someone to become stinking rich. This is part of a solution and I think its a good idea because then more money is distributed. So you say the problem is distribution (which is what I say too).. so what solutions can you come up with then?
So yes, it avoids civil war.. aka civil unrest, the law of the jungle. A society cant function like this. If we live in a capitalistic society, we need welfare. Because if we are going to have a society that allows for free market capitalism e.g. we allow companies to get up and leave if they choose to.. then we need a support system in place to aid people who are left out. This helps mitigate major instabilities in societies. This is what welfare does. But I also agree with you that it keeps the power structure in place. I think either way, life will have its winners and losers, there is no easy answer.
LSE, please show the slides included in the lectures
I found the slides online, but I agree it'd be better if you could see them as he pointed them out. Don't know if this helps, but here are the slides: www.lse.ac.uk/assets/richmedia/channels/publicLecturesAndEvents/slides/20141110_1830_whatWelfareState_sl.pdf
Too many people expect a Welfare State.However I agree on a Govetnment that supports Medical Care like Costa Rica- my country but not taking care of all of indiiduala needs
Alguien lo puede subtitular en español?
26:15
Fast forward about 6 minutes, and the guy stops blathering and starts firing analysis at you. Fun!!
it would have been better if you guys showed his slides. I mean, I can still understand what he is saying without looking at him, but he keeps on referring to his slides which we can't see.
Although be prepared for occasional relapses.
Private sector, free market, properly regulated... self governing Insurance
55:50 capitalism needs socialism to survive
The alternative to the welfare state is quite clear, the unemployed have parents who can look after them in times of need, when in work people can take out private unemployment insurance which provides them money until they get another job. For pensions people invest in the stock market their savings ideally which is good for the economy and means that wealth is created instead of taken from one group and given to another which discourages people to work. Realistically this process would take 45 years to fully transform as there is a cut-off point so people who are 20 would have to start saving for their pension with the private option and people older would receive a state pension. People who have parents that can afford to support them would have their state benefits cut off. Those with no parents to support them would receive benefits until they can find a job which allows them to start paying for unemployment insurance.
You're assuming there are jobs to be found that pay a wage sufficient to cover cost of living, a health savings account, retirement pension, and unemployment insurance. Also your contributions to these personal accounts offer no guarantee of covering future expenses, being subject to the booms and busts associated with business cycles.
I can't believe that so many people of well above average intelligence, could talk for 1:27:05 and NOT say anything at all!
How is this even possible?
And the questions were even worse.
What a waste of time.
P.s. I love Britons, but they do seem to talk far too much, without saying anything. They have multitudes of talk shows that follow this same trend. Oh well😕
+tuutts39 HONESTLY^
maybe you just did not understand what he was saying