ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author originates a presumption that his personal life span might more or less coincide with that of the Welfare State. The author hopes that, however, to convince the reader that the Welfare State will far exceed the five years which is roughly the expectation that the Life Tables. If, after all, the Welfare State did have a birthday, the 1908 Act was it. At least that Act was widely regarded as an alarming omen for the future. Nevertheless, crazy though it would be in present circumstances, the author should still cherish universalisation as the ultimate blue-print for the Welfare State. First and foremost the restriction of any allowance by even the most courteous means test inevitably creates a 'poverty trap', where any increase of independent income means loss of the allowance. If the new technology is directed, towards the abolition, not of work, but of poverty, it might indeed herald the apotheosis of the Welfare State.
