ABSTRACT
This chapter is in four parts. The first part introduces the idea of long swings in policies dealing with social inequality over half a century or more. It describes, in particular, the role of one ardent social reformer in Britain – Eleanor Rathbone – because of her exceptional importance in the evolution of what became the ‘Welfare State’. Reformist policies for social services and redistribution of income seem to alternate with periods of reversal and retrenchment. The second part of the chapter suggests that these long swings in social policy and in income distribution have some connection with long cycles in the economy – the so-called ‘Kondratieff waves’. The third part tries to show how and why the trend towards greater inequality emerges when a major new technology is spreading through the economic system. The fourth part shows how this inequality also manifests itself in the wealth and poverty of whole nations, through the uneven development of the world economy. Finally, the conclusions suggest very briefly some ways in which the present trends towards greater inequality with all their dangerous social and political consequences might be reversed.
