ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that welfare institutions have at different times pursued notions of state interventions which reflected two concepts of welfare. The nineteenth-century model allowed social engineering to create a more favourable environment, but forbade assistance to individuals, except on punitive terms. The chapter considers the preconditions for a true welfare state; it examines whether any institutional expression of the state's concern for the welfare of its citizens can avoid the pitfalls of the two models. The chapter discusses the question of whether welfare provision can be reconciled with the free and equal citizenship of recipients of state assistance. It also discusses the responsibilities of the individual towards his family. Social policy has always tried to enhance rather than to diminish the sense of family responsibility. It has been anxious that provision should not weaken the ties of obligations between family members.
