Affiliated with the University of Nicosia |
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THE WELFARE STATE AND THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS By Graig Webster
Associate Professor of International Relations, University of Nicosia
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Whether the current economic crisis is a short-term
downturn in the global economy or a depression is debatable.
Some will take the view that this is a depression that occurs
because of the normal functioning of capitalist economies and the
current crisis is just the unpleasant part of a Kondratieff wave.
A more optimistic view is that the infusion of money into the
economy will stimulate the economy and things will return to normal in a
short period of time. There
are others who believe that the free market is self-correcting and that
governmental intervention will only prolong the downturn or make it
worse. However the current economic crisis can be
categorized and whatever the solution to the problem, the impact on
societies has been and will be substantial.
A great deal of human suffering
is going on and there is the question of the short-term and long-term
impact on populations. The
welfare state is needed more so than in good economic times, despite the
fact that the tax base supporting it is decreasing. There are three different reasons that strong welfare
institutions and well-funded institutions are needed now, apart from the
counter-cyclical argument.
The first is that welfare state institutions in the most advanced
economies have been decaying in recent decades.
Changes in recent decades have worked in ways that undermined
welfare state institutions, not just reducing funding of programs but
also making eligibility requirements stricter.
Those institutions of the welfare state that had once been strong
and sources of national pride (such as the National Health Service in
the UK) have suffered in recent decades. A second good reason for having strong welfare state
institutions is that political leaders will find that strengthening such
institutions will be prudent for them in the months and years to come.
Failure to financially support welfare institutions will not be
looked upon in a positive way by voters.
Certainly, financially supporting such institutions will help
alleviate the pressure that governments will face with angry
populations. Concessions to
the citizenry by expanding welfare state institutions, therefore, are
politically sensible because they are popular. A third reason for having strong welfare state
institutions is to make sure that when the economic crisis is over, the
populations that emerge to rebuild are healthy and educated.
Thus, strengthening human capital now will assist when recovery
takes place. Housing,
education, and health deficits of a population will be hard to make up
in a short period of time.
For example, the school lunch program in the USA developed out of the
concern military leaders had during World War Two since many of the
recruits were considered too scrawny.
This aspect of the welfare state in the USA was not designed to
make the recruits during World War Two brawnier but was designed to
ensure that military leaders in the future would not face the same
problem with recruits who were not sufficiently robust for service.
In this downturn, governments will have two major
sets of choices to make regarding welfare states.
The first is how to fund them and how much to fund them.
This will be somewhat tricky since the declining tax base during
a downturn will mean that difficult choices will have to be made.
However, since it is a concession to stem social unrest, the
benefits will become increasingly obvious to political leaders.
The second question is what type of institutions will
have to be built or in what way existing institutions will have to be
rearranged. There are three
types of regimes of welfare states.
The liberal one corrects for market failures and works in ways to
support free markets, and offers basic needs as a last resort.
The conservative one, pioneered by Otto von Bismarck, aims to
retain social and economic structures. The socialist one, associated
with social democratic political approaches, attempts to diminish
socio-economic differences in the population by giving all members of
the society equal access to medical services, educational services, and
other social and economic needs. Those advanced economies with socialist
welfare regimes also tend to be those with such extensive welfare
programs that they seem to offer their citizenry every conceivable
medical service apart from breast implants and facelifts.
For example, the Danish government’s welfare services are so
inclusive that it provides orthodontic care to citizens who need it. The choice of which type of welfare regime a country
chooses matters, as does the nature and logic of particular programs
within the welfare state.
For example, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have been frequently blamed for
causing the credit crisis in the USA.
These US Government-sponsored enterprises are part of the liberal
welfare state in the USA, ensuring that people who the private sector
may not give credit to (lower-income people) would have access to credit
to purchase housing.
Alternatives to such institutions would have been to either allow for
greater homelessness or to have the government more intimately involved
in expanding government-funded housing.
In retrospect, the choice taken seems a mistake, since the
failing of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae has sent a much more dangerous and
significant ripple-effect though the economy than direct government
investments in housing ever could. The crisis will come to an end someday.
Governments should keep this in mind and start planning for the
future following this economic downturn by investing in
people—especially their health, education, and housing.
The USA, among the most developed countries, will be in the most
disadvantageous position in this regard since is welfare state is
modest. The key question for
the future is the status of countries’ citizenry after the crisis.
Do political leaders want to lead societies in which economic
wealth is very unevenly distributed and large percentages of the
population suffer from preventable illnesses, inadequate education, and
social and economic exclusion?
It is obvious that those countries that choose well-funded
welfare institutions and choose wise programs will have an advantage in
the post-economic crisis world.
They will be the countries that will have populations that will
be ready to face the challenges of the future because they will be
appropriately vaccinated against preventable diseases, will be
adequately educated, and will have straight teeth, to boot.
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