ABSTRACT
In the immediate future mainstream political debates on welfare will continue to be conducted within the rarefied atmosphere created by the economic rationality which characterises advanced capitalism. It seems inevitable that the dominant paradigm constructed within industrial society will constrain the parameters of welfare debates. However, it is clear that the economic developments in advanced capitalist societies cannot provide sufficient resources to generate social welfare because the reference point of work-for-wages is increasingly without solid foundation. In this sense the criticisms launched at modern welfare states identified earlier are likely to become more and more pertinent as the changes in the economy which are now evident set in and render ‘workerist’ welfare arrangements redundant. Moreover, challenges to models of citizenship which are tinged with the same logic that underpins Western welfare states are also likely to encounter increasing criticism. In short, the models of welfare and citizenship which have provided the backdrop for post-war welfare regimes are likely to face more critical analysis because the very principles which they embody have been undermined. In this sense no amount of tinkering at the edges will be able to resurrect the health of Fordist-Keynesian welfare provision. This suggests that new theoretical proposals need to be created to fill the void left by the redundancy of the ‘workerist’ model.
