1. Changes in the Class Structure
A. Middle class and stability in Georgian
society - the middle class grew rapidly in the 18th century, especially in the cities. At the top of the scale The legal profession
succeeded first, establishing specialist training and associations, and was
soon followed by the medical profession. The merchant class prospered with
imperial trade. Wahrman (1992) argues that the new urban elites included two
types: the gentlemanly capitalist, who participated in the national society,
and the independent bourgeois, who was oriented toward the local community. By
the 1790s a self-proclaimed middle class, with a particular sociocultural
self-perception, had emerged.
Thanks to
increasing national wealth, upward
mobility into the middle class, urbanisation, and civic stability, Britain was
relatively calm and stable, certainly compared with the revolutions and wars
which were convulsing the American colonies, France and other nations at the
time. The politics of the French Revolution did not
translate directly into British society to spark an equally seismic revolution,
nor did the loss of the American
Colonies dramatically weaken or disrupt Great Britain.
B. Victorian era - the social
changes during the Victorian era were wide-ranging and fundamental, leaving
their mark not only upon the United Kingdom but upon much of the world which
was under Britain's influence during the 19th century. It can even be argued
that these changes eclipsed the massive shifts in society during the 20th
century; certainly many of the developments of the 20th century have their
roots in the 19th. The technology of the Industrial Revolution had a
great impact on society. Inventions not only introduced new industries for
employment, but the products and services produced also altered society.
The population of England almost
doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901. Scotland's population also rose rapidly, from
2.8 million in 1851 to 4.4 million in 1901. Ireland's population decreased
rapidly, from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in 1901, mostly due
to the Great
Famine. At the
same time, around 15 million emigrants left the
United Kingdom in the Victorian era and settled mostly in the United States,
Canada, and Australia. Not only
did the rapidly expanding British Empire attract
immigrants, it also attracted temporary administrators, soldiers, missionaries
and businessmen who on their return talked up the Empire as a part of greater
Britain.
Culturally
there was a transition away from the rationalism of the
Georgian period and toward romanticism and
mysticism with regard to religion, social values, and the arts. The era is popularly associated with the "Victorian" values of
social and sexual restraint.
The status of
the poor is one area in which huge changes occurred. A good illustration of the
differences between life in the Georgian and Victorian eras are the writings of
two of England's greatest authors, Jane Austen and Charles
Dickens. Both writers held a fascination for people, society and the details of
everyday life but in Austen the poor are almost absent, mainly because they
were still the rural poor, remote and almost absent from the minds of the
middle classes. For Dickens, only a few years later, the poor were his main
subject, as he had partly suffered their fate. The poor now were an unavoidable
part of urban society and their existence and plight could not be ignored.
Industrialisation made large profits for the entrepreneurs of the times, and
their success was in contrast not only to the farm workers who were in
competition with imported produce but also to the aristocracy whose landowning
wealth was now becoming less significant than business wealth. The British
class system created an intricate hierarchy of people which contrasted the new
and old rich, the skilled and unskilled, the rural and urban and many more.
Some of the
first attacks on industrialisation were the Luddites' destruction
of machines, but this had less to do with factory conditions and more to do
with machines mass-producing linen much quicker and cheaper than the handmade
products of skilled labourers. The army was called to the areas of Luddite
activity such as Lancashire and Yorkshire and for
a time there were more British soldiers controlling the Luddites than fighting
Napoleon in Spain. The squalid, dangerous and oppressive conditions of many of
the new Victorian factories and the surrounding communities which rose to
service them became important issues of discontent, and the workers began to
form trade unions to get
their working conditions addressed.
The first
unions were feared and distrusted,and ways were devised to ban them. The most
widely known case was that of the Tolpuddle Martyrs of 1834,
an early attempt at a union whose members were tried on a spurious charge,
found guilty and transported to Australia. The sentence
was challenged and they were released shortly afterwards, but unions were still
threatened. It was not until the formation of the TUC in 1868
and the passing of the Trade
Union Act 1871 that union membership became reasonably
legitimate. Many pieces of legislation were passed to improve working
conditions, including the Ten Hours Act 1847 to reduce working hours,
and these culminated in the Factory Act 1901.
Many of these
acts resulted from the blight of Britain's
agricultural depression. Beginning in 1873 and lasting until 1896, many
farmers and rural workers were hard-pressed for a stable income. With the
decline in wheat prices and land productivity many countrymen were left looking
for any hope of prosperity. Although the British parliament gave substantial
aid to farmers and laborers, many still complained that rents were too high,
wages too low, and the hours laborers were required to work were too long for
their income. As a result, many workers turned to unions to have their concerns
heard and, with the acts listed above as proof, were able to achieve some
success.
Environmental
and health standards rose throughout the Victorian era; improvements in nutrition
may also have played a role, although the importance of this is debated. Sewage works were improved as was the quality of
drinking water. With a healthier environment, diseases were caught less easily
and did not spread as much. Technology was also improving because the
population had more money to spend on medical technology (for example,
techniques to prevent death in childbirth so more women and children survived),
which also led to a greater number of cures for diseases. However, a cholera epidemic
took place in London in 1848–49 killing 14,137, and subsequently in 1853
killing 10,738. This anomaly was attributed to the closure and replacement
of cesspits by the
modern sewerage systems.
2. The British Welfare State and its Social dynamics
The welfare state of the United Kingdom comprises
expenditures by the government of the United Kingdom intended to improve
health, education, employment and social
security. The British system has been classified as a liberal welfare state system.
A. History - the United
Kingdom is a unitary
state, with limited devolution. Because of this, the structure of various services
(including welfare) in different countries of the UK changes in certain
respects; for example, the laws which apply in Scotland may not
be equally applicable to Northern
Ireland or England
and Wales. This also carries implications concerning governmental welfare programs.
The United
Kingdom, as a welfare state in the modern sense, was anticipated by the Royal
Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws 1832 which
found that the old poor law (a part of the English
Poor laws) was subject to widespread abuse and promoted squalor, idleness and
criminality in its recipients, compared to those who received private charity.
Accordingly, the qualifications for receiving aid were tightened up, forcing
many recipients to either turn to private charity or accept employment.
Opinions began
to be changed late in the century by the reports drawn up by men such as Seebohm
Rowntree and Charles Booth into the
levels of poverty in Britain. These reports indicated that in the massive
industrial cities, between one-quarter and one-third of the population were
living below the poverty
line.
B. Liberal reforms - after the United Kingdom general election, 1906, the Labour
Party became a serious competitor to the Liberal
Party. The
resulting Liberal welfare reforms laid the
foundations of the modern welfare state. The reforms were greatly extended over the next forty years. Certainly, governments which had seen the wave
of communist revolts after the First
World War were keen to ensure that deeper reforms reduced the risk of mass
social unrest. In addition, modern, complex industry had more need for a
healthy and educated workforce than older industries had. Crucially, the experience of almost total state
control during the Second
World War had inured the
population to the idea that the state might be able to solve problems in wide
areas of national life. Finally,
it seems likely that the social mixing involved in mass evacuation of children,
and of service in the armed forces, had increased support for welfare among the
middle classes. The Liberal
government of 1906-1914 implemented welfare policies concerning three main
groups in society: the old, the young and working people.
The young - In 1906 local
authorities were allowed to provide free school meals.
The Children and Young Persons Act 1908 introduced
a set of regulations that became known as the Children's Charter. This imposed
severe punishments for neglecting or treating children cruelly. It was made
illegal to sell cigarettes to children or send them out begging. Separate
juvenile courts were set up, which sent children convicted of a crime to
borstals (a forerunner to modern youth detention centres), instead of prison.
The old - In 1908
pensions were introduced for the over 70s.
The National Insurance Act 1911was passed, ensuring
free medical treatment, and sick pay of 10 shillings a week for 26 weeks. An estimated 13 million workers came to be
compulsorily covered under this scheme.
C. Beveridge Report and Labour - the aftermath of the First
World War boosted demands for social reform, and led to a permanent increase in
the role of the state in British society. The end of the war also brought a
slump, particularly in northern industrial towns, that deepened into the Great
Depression by the 1930s.
During the
war, the government became much more involved in people's lives via
governmental organisation of the rationing of foodstuffs, clothing and fuel and
extra milk and meals being given to expectant mothers and children. The wartime coalition government also committed
itself to full employment through Keynesian policies, free universal secondary
education, and the introduction of family allowances. Many people welcomed this government intervention and wanted it to go
further.
The Beveridge
Report of 1942, (which identified five "Giant Evils" in society:
squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease) essentially recommended a
national, compulsory, flat
rate insurance scheme which would combine health care,
unemployment and retirement benefits. Beveridge himself was careful to
emphasize that unemployment benefits should be held to a subsistence level, and
after six months would be conditional on work or training, so as not to
encourage abuse of the system. That was
however predicated on the concept of the "maintenance of employment"
which meant ‘it should be possible to make unemployment of any individual for
more than 26 weeks continuously a rare thing in normal times’ and
recognised that the imposition of a training condition would be impractical if
the unemployed were numbered by the million. After its victory in the United Kingdom general election, 1945 the Labour
Party pledged to eradicate the Giant Evils, and undertook policy measures to
provide for the people of the United Kingdom "from the cradle to the
grave."
Included among
the laws passed were the National Assistance Act 1948, National Insurance Act 1946, and National
Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1946.
D. Impact - this policy
resulted in increased expenditure and a widening of what was considered to be
the state's responsibility.
In addition to the central services of education, health, unemployment and
sickness allowances, the welfare state also included the idea of increasing
redistributive taxation, increasing regulation of industry, food, and housing
(better safety regulations, weights and measures controls,
etc.)
The foundation
of the National Health Service (NHS)
did not involve building new hospitals but nationalisation of existing
municipal provision and charitable foundations. The aim was not to
substantially increase provision but to standardise care across the country;
indeed Beveridge believed that the overall cost of medical care would decrease,
as people became healthier and so needed less treatment.
However,
instead of falling, the cost of the NHS has risen by 4% annually on average due
to an ageing population, leading
to a reduction in provision. Charges for dentures, and spectacles were
introduced in 1951 by the Labour government that had founded the NHS three
years earlier and prescription charges by the Conservative Government in 1952. In 1988, free eye tests for all were stopped,
although they are now free for the over-60s.
Policies
differ in different countries of the United Kingdom, but the provision of a
welfare state is still a basic principle of government policy in the United
Kingdom today. The principle of health care "free at the point of
use" became a central idea of the welfare state, which later Conservative
governments, although critical of some aspects of the Welfare State, did not
reverse.
E. Expenditure - in the financial year 2014/15, state pensions were overwhelmingly the
largest governmental welfare expense, costing £86.5 billion, followed
by housing benefit, which
accounted for over £20 billion. Expenditure
in 2011-12 on benefits included £5.1 billion paid to unemployed people and
£41 billion to people on low incomes:
UK Government
welfare expenditure 2011–12 (percent)
State pension (46.32%)
Housing Benefit (10.55%)
Disability Living Allowance (7.87%)
Pension Credit (5.06%)
Income Support (4.31%)
Rent rebates (3.43%)
Attendance allowance (3.31%)
Jobseeker's Allowance (3.06%)
Incapacity Benefit (3.06%)
Council Tax Benefit (3%)
Other (10.03%)
UK Government welfare expenditure
2014–15
|
|
Benefit
|
Expenditure (£bn)
|
86.5
|
|
Tax credits (Working
tax credits and Child tax credits)
|
29.7
|
23.5
|
|
15.4
|
|
Incapacity benefits
|
14.1
|
11.6
|
|
6.6
|
|
5.4
|
|
3.1
|
|
2.6
|
|
Maternity and paternity pay
|
2.4
|
2.3
|
|
Winter fuel payments
|
2.1
|
War pensions
|
0.8
|
Universal credit
|
0.1
|
Other
|
5.9
|
TOTAL
|
213.9
|
I. Criticisms - critics of the welfare state claim that, in addition to the vast expense, by
relieving citizens of personal responsibility for their own welfare the
government has inadvertently promoted irresponsible and immature attitudes,
with the result that squalor, ignorance, and idleness are common. In 1980, T. E.
Utley, wrote that the welfare state was "an arrangement under which we all
largely cease to be responsible for our own behaviour and in return become
responsible for everyone else's. The temptations which this way of doing things
offers to synthetic anger, fraudulent penitence, all other forms of hypocrisy
and the sheer evasion of duty are infinitely too strong for fallen man".
In the early
21st century, the Government of David Cameron has
argued for a reduction of welfare spending in the United Kingdom as part of
their programme of austerity. Government ministers have argued that a growing
culture of welfare dependency is
perpetuating welfare spending, and claim that a cultural change is required to
reduce the welfare bill. Public
opinion in the UK appears to support a reduction in welfare spending, however
commentators have suggested that negative public perceptions are founded on
exaggerated assumptions about the proportion of spending on unemployment benefit and the
level of benefit fraud.
Figures from
the Department
for Work and Pensions show that benefit fraud is thought to have cost
taxpayers £1.2 billion during 2012-13, up 9 per cent on the year before. This is lower than the £1.5bn of benefit
underpayment due to error.
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