ABSTRACT
Is welfare defined solely by activities of the state or can it exist independently of state action? Conventional studies of the welfare state often imply the former view. However, any study of goods and services of primary importance to the majority of individuals must consider non-state as well as state sources of welfare. The collapse of centrally planned systems of welfare in Eastern Europe1 is a reminder of the need to think clearly about the dependence of welfare upon the state. Since East European regimes imposed by the Soviet Union were dictatorships, it is also necessary to examine the relation between freedom and state welfare, for, even if East Europeans have had a modicum of state welfare provision, they have not been able to take freedom for granted. In the abstract, we can define total welfare in the family (TWF) as the sum of goods and services produced by the household (H), the market (M) and the state (S) (Rose, 1989: ch. 8).
