Welfare State
There are three main interpretations of the idea of a "welfare state". In the first, a welfare state is an ideal model in which the government assumes the primary responsibility for the individual and social welfare of its citizens. The term is used for the provision of welfare services by the state. Third, welfare states may be identified with general systems of social protection. In many "welfare states" welfare is not provided by the state at all, but by a combination of independent, voluntary and government services.
Examples of early welfare-states in the modern world are the Sweden and New Zealand of the 1930s. Changed attitudes in reaction to the Great Depression were instrumental in the move to the welfare state in many countries, a harbinger of new times where "cradle-to-grave" services became a reality in contrast to the harsh mass-poverty of the Depression.
Social protection tends to be more advanced in economically more developed countries; poorer countries generally have more limited welfare services. Critics of the welfare state in the US claim it makes citizens lazy and less inclined to work. This is unsupported by the economic evidence; there is no association between economic performance and welfare expenditure in developed countries. (See A B Atkinson, Incomes and the Welfare State, Cambridge University Press 1995.) The Welfare State idea is also criticized as not much bang for the buck, however others point to counterexamples that may suggest otherwise. R Goodin et al, The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 2000) show that on major economic and social indicators, the USA performs worse than the Netherlands, which has a high commitment to welfare provision. The Welfare State is accused of resulting in high taxes in places like Denmark (Tax level of 50.4% of the GNP in 2002) and Sweden (Tax level of 50.3% of the GNP in 2002). Some do, but these countries also have high wage economies and high GNPs; high taxes do not imply poor economic performance. Critics of the welfare state also argue that these government services are in fact inefficient and thus expensive, by contrast with nations with less welfare like the USA. In fact, the US system is substantially more expensive, especially in health care, because of its organisational diversity and heavy administrative costs. National systems like the United Kingdom: the Welfare State
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