the claim that "welfare is over" is a utopian claim or wish-fulfillment made by the right, and apocalyptic dystopian fantasy of the left. at least so far as the claim is made without qualification. "welfare" is not by a long shot over, in any number of ways. not least of these ways is that medicare and fsp still remain, and that welfare never really started in the united states. the latter claim will certainly not get a hearing in policy circles, but it needs to made (see both mike davis and michael katz on this score). it also needs to be noted that while "social safety net" has fallen into some disrepair both ideologically and practically, the rhetoric of post-asia international financial architecture is replete with calls for a "financial safety net" from folks as esteemed as krugman, greenspan and barry eichengreen. seems moral hazard applies only to poor women and children, not to ltcm and their friends.
you might say this is just the rhetoric of policy, but such rhetoric matters, *especially* when making policy. and especially when the practical effects of such policy have been to deny the still-existing entitlements to people who could still get them. and especially when the "safety net" being proposed isn't for those who will suffer the on-the-ground consequences of the of financial and fiscal crises (that the old social safety net was supposed to mitigate) but for the financiers whose unreason helps precipitates them (to paraphrase keynes).
i think max is right that the new organizing possibilities revolve around the politics and rhetoric of work. "the end of welfare as we know it" is a complete failure, at least as an anti-poverty and "empowerment" policy. work should be worthwhile to those who can/are willing to do it. clinton's policy on this score is a disgrace, and no one who has the least bit of historical scruple about "social democracy" or the viability of the so-called welfare state could possibly support it.
best christian