ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the question of how the resources of society ought to be
distributed. The provision of social services outside the market system by the welfare
state has been commended and attacked on many grounds. Some writers argue that social
welfare is necessary to counteract the inherent tendency of the capitalist economic order
to disequilibrium, whether as a result of competition between the classes it creates, or as a
result of the tendency to disastrous depletion of over-exploited human resources. Others
claim that welfare plays a positive role in training and socializing citizens to fulfil the demands the system makes on them. Yet others attempt a synthesis of these viewpoints.
