From a Welfare State to a Welfare Society

At the end of the 20th century, the welfare state is being subjected to fundamental re-appraisal. It is commonly argued that modern Western societies require a new moral economy in which responsibility for welfare and social care is shifted from the state to the family and community. This text critically assesses the range of academic and political debates around the questions such a shift raises, exploring how far social solidarity is possible when social inequality has become so in evidence in the last two decades of the 20th century.