Merits of the Welfare State

Many modern States have become social service and welfare States of one form or another. The ‘police State’ of the laissezfaire period is dead. The functions of the State have multiplied and are. constantly increasing. The sphere of State activities is becoming ever wider. But this increase in State action does not lessen or restrict the sphere of individual liberty and democratic rights and processes. The aims of the welfare State are to be achieved through democratic parliamentary methods.

The freedom from want and freedom from fear are secured along with freedom of expression and “association, at least in Great Britain. Welfare State is a socialised State, based on “constitutional socialism.” So great is the urgency and importance of the welfare State in modern conditions that the industrially backward and under-developed countries, like India and Pakistan, have proclaimed their ideal to be “welfare States”, although they do not possess enough economic resources and wealth to do so. This ideal of the Welfare State was laid down in the ‘directive principles of State Policy’ in the Pakistan Constitution of 1973.

Arguments against the Welfare State

The ‘welfare State’ as it exists in England, France and other Western countries, has been criticised for its weaknesses and dangers. It is said to threaten the democratic rights and freedoms of the individual, restrict free enterprise by introducing planning and regimentation of private industry. The ‘mixed’ economy of the welfare State is economically a “conspicuous waste” of national resources and energy, initiative and enterprise. “Such a ‘mixed’ State becomes like a dog in a barnyard. It cannot lay eggs, and it will not let the hens (that is, the private enterprise and the capitalists) do so.

As the standards of law, order, value or money and social obligation decline, the hope of individuals in the future of such a State declines. All spend what they earn.” Thus capital formation stops and the society becomes static. Moreover, the “welfare State’ can exist only in industrially advanced and rich countries, which can maintain their artificially enhanced standards of living. It divides the world into have and have—not nations of the developed North and the underdeveloped South.

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