ABSTRACT
The evidence usually offered is the supposedly negative attitude of nineteenth-century Liberal economists to the problem of poverty and their emphasis on non-intervention in economic life. The technical foundations consisted of two main supports. The first was the Malthusian principle of population. The relief of poverty by State intervention brought with it the danger of encouraging early marriages and a higher birth-rate. It was for this reason that Malthus insisted that one of the main subjects to be taught in elementary education should be the principle of population. The assumption behind the Classical argument was that the amount of saving undertaken by the community determined rate of capital accumulation. In a Liberal society the basis of any policy regarding social policy is the belief that all persons should live in reasonable com-fort within the limits imposed by the state of development of the economy, and that no person’s opportunities to develop his particular gifts should be frustrated by material circumstances.
