Advanced Capitalism and the Welfare State

everyone his own definition of it, but all-conservatives, liberals, and socialists alike-seem to agree that Western capitalism has already moved into this orbit. The poor and the unemployed may see the welfare state as promising security or even affluence. The professional administrator, however, usually conceives of it as a safety valve for potential social problems or as an efficient instrument to control economic and social problems which regularly erupt in capitalist society. By this time even the taxpaying man on the street has accepted most features of the welfare state as at least necessary evils.2 I should like to offer some observations on what I consider to be the logic of development towards the welfare state. During a recent extended stay in the United States, I was amazed at the unusual mutuality of admiration between America and Western European countries. Europeans in general are led to believe that the States are far ahead of us in almost every area of life-scientific and technological achievement, affluence and economic success, and political freedom. Of course, some of