ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a range of sociological models of the state which seek to explain–and sometimes prescribe–state activity in this period. It reviews major state interventions in social and economic life in Britain over the some years. Welfare statism could be seen as a reflection of the politics of consensus practised during this period by both major political parties. State intervention in welfare, as in industry and the economy, is to be substantially removed and the market, rather than the state, is to regulate economic relations and provide services. The wartime coalition government also signalled its intention to intervene more systematically than previous governments in the provision and control of social welfare. State intervention in the social and economic life of British society was a constant and increasingly marked feature of the thirty years which followed Labour's landslide victory in the 1945 general election.
