ABSTRACT
One way of coping with this conceptual problem is to build a descriptive language around the notion of claims. Industrial societies seem to have four major systems within which claims are generated and honored: family, work, government, and capital. Each system provides an avenue for establishing claims. A claim package is the unique assemblage of claims a household puts together in attempting to maximize its welfare within a given claim system. Claim packaging is itself a dynamic process that extends beyond an individual's position in the income distribution. The legal system has seen the evolution of a body of claims and entitlements in the welfare system, relevant to persons at a social level below that of the established working class. The conflicts and interdependencies among claims structures bring in response complex forms of claiming that try to take account of the conflicts and interdependencies.
