ABSTRACT
The protagonist of the statist thesis chooses the following six arguments: the continuation of a long trend, the ubiquity of a strong Social Democratic party in almost all pluralist democracies, the role of the new political mandarinate, the aging of the population, the decline in birthrates, and the eventuality of a high level of unemployment. The progression of the interventionist state will probably continue with economic growth. In the Western European countries, the state takes more care of the older population than anywhere else in the world with the exception of Israel, and the financial burdens of this lengthening of life in the advanced societies are becoming heavier and heavier. Governments could utilize a number of measures such as employment subsidies, job training, expanded research and development, active manpower policies, investment subsidies, and severe limitations on “guest workers” either to prevent unemployment or to ameliorate it once it occurs.
