Neoliberal The Beveridge Report

The present essay explores the U.K. government’s welfare state policies that were implemented after the Second World War and the changes that were observed when neoliberalism gained political and economic power. First, it explains what social policy is and how vital it is for the wellbeing of society. Second, it describes the policies that were suggested in the Beveridge report, which sought to address problems, such as poverty, disease, squalor, idleness and ignorance. Third, it synopsizes the economic reasons that resulted in changes in the welfare state, the taxation system and economic policy from the late 1970s onward. Finally, it discusses the principles of the ideology of neoliberalism and it examines the implementation of neoliberal
social policy, written after the Second World War by William Beveridge, constituted an effort to improve the U.K. welfare system (Miller, 1999). The report recommended measures that would be able to tackle identified social evils, such as poverty, disease, squalor, idleness and ignorance (Chandler, 2002). The suggested policies found in the Beveridge report were initially implemented by the Labour Party after the Second World War. The welfare state offered children’s allowances, unemployment insurances, and free national healthcare (Miller, 1999). The chief goal was to eliminate the evils identified in the Beveridge report and furnish a more socially just socio-economic framework (Miller, 2009). Some of the most important acts suggested in the report were the National Health Service Act in 1946 that intended to provide free healthcare to everyone, the National Insurance Act in 1946 that sought to ensure income to sick, retired and unemployed people, and the National Assistance Act in 1948 that was provided to people that needed income assistance (Miller,
Supporters of neoliberalism state that their ideology has managed to reduce absolute inequality, the situation of being extremely poor, whereas opponents of neoliberalism argue that neoliberalism has caused relative inequality, less income and resources in relation to the average (Uvin, 2003). Wade advocated that the inequality between the working class and the capitalists has widened since 1980 (Wade, 2004). Moreover, Coburn noted that neoliberalism endorsed inequality (Coburn, 2004) and Harvey suggested that the capitalist nature of neoliberalism should be blamed for the economic inequality (Harvey, 2005). He supported his argument by discussing how neoliberalism promoted inequality through suppressing the rights of the working class, increasing profit at the expense of the working class’ labor, minimizing taxation from the upper and middle class and initiating credit systems (Harvey, 2005). Finally, from a Marxist standpoint, neoliberalism has promoted socio-economic inequality between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, as an outcome of the basic premise of neoliberalism that the human well-being can be achieved by the unrestricted movement of labor, capital and resources and the elimination of government intervention in the economy. In general, neoliberalism managed to transfer high amounts of money from the low class to the upper