ABSTRACT
The welfare state has been praised for reducing people's dependence upon wage labour at the same time as it presupposes that people take part of the labour force. It is a social project of de-commodification that is at the same time financed through taxation of labour, goods and services in circulation. It has been named both a sort of socialism and an improver of capitalism. The ecological crisis brings some of these fundamental contradictions to the foreground. The welfare state carries with it some apparent internal tensions between de-commodification aims and economic prosperity goals. It is for instance emblematic that the Swedish Social Democratic party in the 2010 general elections launched the slogan "Growth" since 1889; economic growth is understood and hailed as a prerequisite for a flourishing welfare state. The welfare state compensates for a basic characteristic of capitalism; that the fruits of labour accrue to someone else than the labourer him-/herself.
