The Citizen in the Welfare State

Reflections on T H Marshall’s Citizenship and Social Class

Dr Simon Duffy ￭ The Centre for Welfare Reform ￭ 6th June 2013 ￭ Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Lisbon

Aristotle’s Aristotle’s formsforms LeftLeft RightRight

Monarchy SocialismConservatis

m

AristocracyLeft-

liberalismRight-

liberalism

Polity Republicanism

1.Marshall was right to say that citizenship should be central to how we defend and define the welfare state.

2.However the four main traditions of political theory are not theories of citizenship and they do not value citizenship.

3.Marshall’s focus on collective social rights reveals the limitations of his vision for citizenship: these are not the key social rights.

4.Moreover if we only focus just on rights we miss the two other critical dimensions of citizenship: duty and freedom.

5.Citizenship’s value is to help us to be different yet live together respectfully as equals, in a community that we take care of.

6.If we used citizenship to design the welfare state then it would look very different.

7.Any move to citizenship will face resistance from the existing elites; however change is possible and desirable.

Marshall was right to say that social rights are an aspect of citizenship and that citizenship should be central to the design of our society (including the welfare state).

a) This means citizenship becomes how we defend the welfare state - Is this going to make the welfare state stronger?

b) But then the welfare state must also be defined by citizenship - Is the welfare state actually helping to advance citizenship?

Obviously (a) depends on (b).

What is a collective social right?

• I have a need for something

• The state may respond as a matter of right

• But I have no power to exercise that right

• The state control how to meet my need

Expectations officially recognised as legitimate are not claims that must be met in each case when presented. They become, as it were, details in a design for community living. The obligation of the state is towards society as a whole, whose remedy in case of default lies in parliament or a local council, instead of to individual citizens, whose remedy lies in a court of law, or at least in a quasi-judicial tribunal. The maintenance of a fair balance between these collective and individual elements in social rights is of vital importance to the democratic socialist state.

T H Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class

When do rights become just professional gifts?

self-directed support and personal budgets

citizenship is not just about rights

citizenship achieves much more than rights

Here [in the Greek polis] the meaning of politics, in distinction to its end, is that men in their freedom can interact with one another, as equals among equals, commanding and obeying one another only in emergencies - that is, in time of war - but otherwise managing all their affairs by speaking with and persuading one another.Aristotle explains that a community is not made out of equals, but on the contrary of people who are different and unequal. The community comes into being through equalising, 'isathenai.' [Nich. Ethics 1133 a 14]Arendt, The Promise of Politics

So what does this all mean for the welfare state?

5 possible pro-citizen reforms1.Radical shift of power to local communities

2.Protect social rights with constitutional reform

3.Remove stigma and poverty in one tax-benefit system with guaranteed minimum income

4.Give families more control over the education of their children

5.Reduce spending on institutional care

The welfare state is essential because it exists to make effective our citizenship.

But is it designed to support citizenship or does it undermine citizenship?

If the welfare state is failing to support citizenship then can we expect people to defend it as a constitutive part of citizenship?

Resistance, but...1.Groups of citizens are organising and will

continue to do so, austerity may encourage new thinking

2.The current system will continue to be sterile, the on-going drive to out-sourcing will not work

3.Moral leaders may ask tougher questions as the problems continue and injustice grows

4.Leadership elites may tire of ruling and seek equality

Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty. And just as our political life is free and open, so is our day-to-day life in our relations with each other.Pericles