ABSTRACT
Welfare states are conceptualized as social systems of human reproduction, and a theory of market failures and market conflicts is sketched to account for the development of welfare states. As a social system of human reproduction, the welfare state is part functional alternative to, part supplement of other social systems and institutions, above all the economic system and the family, but also others, such as local communities, associations, patron-clientele relationships. It is a thesis of this paper that a large part of welfare state provisions and arrangements consists of public goods and of coping with externalities. The socio-political context of markets gives rise to conflicts about, as well as within, markets, both of which have been crucial to the development of welfare state systems of human reproduction. Simple human reproduction, in the sense of the sheer survival of a given socio-politically or ideologically bounded population, has of old been regarded as a public good in itself.
