The Justification of Welfare Rights

The welfare state has for many years been the unquestioned triumph of a long era of social engineering. It has been so widely accepted that its administrators might never have felt the need to justify it in moral terms. Things have changed, however. Today the welfare state is more and more considered as a tax-payers’ burden, something that has grown too big and too expensive. The public sector has even been blamed for contributing to a decrease in industrial investment, and hence, at least indirectly, to be responsible for the present economic depression, both by means of legislation (regulation of environmental and other conditions of work) and by means of taxation (redistribution of wealth).