ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the basic assumptions of Labour as framing their likely social policy, not simply in terms of an abstract analysis of ideas but in more historical terms. A stakeholder economy, then, is the new welfare policy insisting on shared values rather than shared benefits. It has four pillars: a stake in employment, a stake in housing, a stake in education, a stake in the community. The notion of community, as it has re-emerged time and again on the British social scene since the Second World War, is a notion that seems to be peculiar to Britain. What is absolutely remarkable to the foreign observer is the total absence of any reference to the economic foundation of inequality. The extremes of poverty are described as a costly squandering of resources, as the unfortunate side-effect of an economy which is not defined in terms of the property of its means of production.
