ABSTRACT
In the main streams of economic thought, public expenditure is considered unproductive per se because it does not yield profit. The only exception is given by Post-Keynesians, for whom public expenditure serves to make accumulation re-start by raising demand. But Keynesian short-term approach does not usually consider the effect of public expenditures on human capital and the consequent increase in productivity. If we assume the latter factor, the welfare state's boom after the Second World War assumes another aspect. It is no more a burden on profit, although provisionally necessary, but a new way of accumulation, whose abrupt blockage caused an endless crisis.
