Rethinking Welfare

This book addresses the relationship between personal and communal welfare. Bill Jordan shows how the general rules governing the organization of a society are intended to reconcile the welfare of the individual with the welfare of the community. He identifies the three major principles which govern the role of the state in relation to welfare as fairness, freedom and need. Having established the nature of these principles in liberal and socialist thinking, he examines their application in such essential areas as employment, the family, income, housing and wealth. He argues that discussions of welfare issues have for too long been compartmentalized into the private, the economic and the social service spheres.