Sosiaaliset oikeudet ja sosiaalipolitiikka: T. H. Marshallin näkökulma hyvinvointivaltioon

Authors

• Tuomo Kokkonen

Abstract

This article analyses T. H. Marshall’s contribution to the British discussion over social policy after II World War. In his classic lecture Citizenship and Social class, given 1949, Marshall took a positive attitude towards the classic British welfare state outlined by Sir William Beveridge. Marshall saw comprehensive social services and the improvements of social security as social extensions of the liberal citizenship. According to him, the post-war situation in Britain was revolutionary because it accomplished civil and political rights of the citizenship with a social element. However, Marshall’s position is much more complex than often understood. Along with the recently revived discussion over Marshallian theory of liberal citizenship, attention has been given to the specific doubts Marshall expressed in relation to the future of social policy. Already in the late 1940s he discussed for an example, about the limits of egalitarian movement. He was also worried about how the wearing out of unified and collective culture of wartime eroded social foundations of the welfare state. Carefully studied, this less often known aspect of Marshall’s work reminds us of the initially complex and contested nature of the welfare state.