ABSTRACT
The caring professions make the largest contribution to what in Britain are called the social services. To have a proper grasp of the background to the existence of the social services we need to take a step back and consider the reasons for the existence of the State itself. What is a state for? How can the existence of a system of government, a legal and political organization, be justified? The various answers to this question make up the history of political thought from the seventeenth century to the twentieth.
