Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to Volume I
- PART ONE OVERVIEW
- PART TWO THE RISE OF SOCIAL SPENDING
- 3 Poor Relief before 1880
- 4 Interpreting the Puzzles of Early Poor Relief
- 5 The Rise of Mass Public Schooling before 1914
- 6 Public Schooling in the Twentieth Century: What Happened to U.S. Leadership?
- 7 Explaining the Rise of Social Transfers Since 1880
- PART THREE PROSPECTS FOR SOCIAL TRANSFERS
- PART FOUR WHAT EFFECTS ON ECONOMIC GROWTH?
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgments
- Index
3 - Poor Relief before 1880
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to Volume I
- PART ONE OVERVIEW
- PART TWO THE RISE OF SOCIAL SPENDING
- 3 Poor Relief before 1880
- 4 Interpreting the Puzzles of Early Poor Relief
- 5 The Rise of Mass Public Schooling before 1914
- 6 Public Schooling in the Twentieth Century: What Happened to U.S. Leadership?
- 7 Explaining the Rise of Social Transfers Since 1880
- PART THREE PROSPECTS FOR SOCIAL TRANSFERS
- PART FOUR WHAT EFFECTS ON ECONOMIC GROWTH?
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgments
- Index
Summary
The first kind of social spending to exceed 1 percent of national product was, and still is, the most controversial kind: direct assistance to the poor. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had as much trouble with policies toward the poor as we do today. In fact, they had the same troubles, and the same opposing arguments came up.
The early debates were as intense as today's debates, the main difference being that the poor faced a much harsher world before the late eighteenth century. Many with power and voice held the poor in contempt, so that governments were more active in punishing beggars and vagabonds than they were in helping them. Private giving did little to offset this harshness. Contrary to a long tradition of imagining that churches and philanthropists were generous toward the poor before government moved into the charity business, there was never much private charity for the government to displace.
How was poor relief, the ancestor of today's public assistance and welfare programs, born and nurtured in such a harsh climate? Where did significant tax-based poor relief emerge, and where did it remain negligible as late as World War I? How did they handle the welfare trilemma, that unavoidable tradeoff between guaranteeing a bottom income, giving incentives to work more, and protecting the government budget? How did their approach differ from city to countryside, from region to region, and from nation to nation?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Growing PublicSocial Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century, pp. 39 - 66Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004