The New Liberalism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The New Liberalism - Essay Example The time bracket, from ‘1880s to 1920s constitutes a relatively cohesive era of extensive industrialization and mass enfranchisement’ (Alexander et all.1995). It is also stressed that (Pluralist assertion) Socio-economic development is a precondition rather then the result of welfare state reforms, thus defining â€Å"development as a process of social differentiation and empowerment that generates social needs and fiscal as well as other state resources as well as political demands for provision of income security† ( Wilensky and Lebeaux.1958; Williamson and Pampel.1993). It means that development precedes the demand for welfare state which is accordingly fulfilled in the form of policy response seeking new patterns of redistribution. On the other hand the development of welfare state has been also attributed to the increase in (organic) State’s ‘specialized capabilities to steer’ and chanalize the stresses it experiences during the process of modernization (Skowronek.1982; Skocpol.1992). The Marxists argue that ‘capitalist development is the source which changes class forces and their balance of power’ (Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens. 1991). This means that capitalism through welfare policies redirect and redistribute the power of class forces and tries to assimilate the classes creating new elite in its own reflection. It is however argued that a singular theoretical approach does not fulfill our requirement to determine the dynamics and contours of development of welfare state in UK at the turn of the century.