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Working-Class Interests and the Politics of Social Democratic Reform in Britain, 1900–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

James E. Cronin  and
Peter Weiler
James E. Cronin
Affiliation:
Boston College
Peter Weiler
Affiliation:
Boston College
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Extract

When nineteenth-century liberals searched for reasons not to enfranchise the lower orders, they most often hit upon the argument that, once given the vote, workers would use it to elect governments pledged to redistribution and welfare at the expense of property. A cursory look at the political history of the twentieth century suggests they were not entirely deluded. Indeed, the most salient facts about political development since 1900 surely are related: The democratization of the political system allowed for the emergence of the working class as a distinct claimant to political power, and its presence within the polity somehow or another stimulated the enormous extension of the social and economic role of the state.

Type
The Working Class and the Welfare State
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 40 , Fall 1991 , pp. 47 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1991

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References

NOTES

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35. The Treasury and the Bank of England closely coordinated their testimony throughout the deliberations of the Macmillan committee. See, for example, Harvey to Leith-Ross, March 20, 1931, in T188/275.

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40. Cripps, Stafford, “Preface”, in Addison, C. et al. , Problems of a Socialist Government (London, 1933), 16Google Scholar; and idem, “Can Socialism Come by Constitutional Methods?” in ibid., 35–66.

41. Bevin, Ernest and Clark, Colin, “Reorganisation of Government Departments and Ministerial Functions”, January 22, 1932, in Fabian Society Papers, J38/2, Nuffield College.Google Scholar

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48. Nationalization was played down even as the form it would take, modeled on what Herbert Morrison had done with London Transport, was made less threatening. On the Morrison model, see Jones, Barry and Keating, Michael, Labour and the British State (Oxford, 1985), 60–61Google Scholar: and Morgan, Kenneth, “The Rise and Fall of Public Ownership in Britain”, in The Political Culture of Modern Britain, ed. Bean, J. W. M. (London, 1987), 279–80.Google Scholar

49. Booth, and Pack, , Employment, Capital and Economic Policy, 145; Durbin, New Jerusalems, 245–8, 260–1.Google Scholar The lack of clarity on the issue of planning was especially significant, in part because there had been a good deal of theoretical work on planning during the 1930s. See, for example, Cole, G. D. H., Principles of Economic Planning (London, 1935)Google Scholar; idem, The Machinery of Socialist Planning (London, 1938Google Scholar: and Durbin, E. F M., Problems of Economic Planning (London, 1949).Google Scholar

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51. “Labour's Home Policy”, 95–99.

52. Labour's specific contribution to the postwar settlement was thus considerably more important than some recent writings would suggest. See, for example, Stedman, Gareth Jones's description of the reforms of the postwar Labour government as “the last and most glorious flowering of late Victorian Liberal philanthropy”, in Languages of Class: Studies in English Working-Class History (Cambridge, 1984), 246.Google Scholar

53. On political and intellectual change in wartime, see Addison, Paul, The Road to 1945 (London, 1975), and Harris, “Political Ideas and the Debate on State Welfare”Google Scholar.

54. On the relatively smooth translation of program into policy after 1945, see Morgan, Kenneth, Labour in Power, 1945–1951 (Oxford, 1984).Google Scholar For some of the contention, see Schneer, Jonathan, Labour's Conscience: The Labour Left, 1945–1951 (London, 1988).Google Scholar