>wanting something better than what they had...but ultimately, capital
>wants more, and so we have "neo" liberalism, which is simply a return to
>what went on before our primitive version of a welfare state was
>created...
What went on before the welfare state was called feudalism.
The 19th century version of capitalism to which the neoliberals aspire to return, had its own welfare state, complete with poor laws. Workhouses for the undeserving, "outdoor relief" for the more deserving, etc. Before that there were other variations on the welfare state, dating back to the dawn of capitalism, when the state was first forced to take over jurisdiction of welfare from the church and local parishes. Because these institutions had proved incapable of adequately or efficiently policing the poor in a capitalist economy.
The welfare state is not an invention of 20th century capitalism.
It is apparent some people have a very narrow definition of "welfare state", that is a universal system of income support guaranteeing the necessities of life to all. Given that no such system has ever existed everywhere, it is clearly useless.
So it is more practical to define "welfare state" simply as when the ultimate responsibility for provision of poor relief is taken over by the nation state. All capitalist states have to do this within a generation or two of capitalism economic relations becoming dominant. Previously evolved welfare systems based on local communities and churches not only break down under capitalism (leading to riot and rebellion) but, just as important, these community systems just do not take a sufficiently strict approach to policing the poor for capitalism.
The workhouse illustrates the point. Its primary objective is not to feed and house the destitute, but to punish and stigmatise them. To provide a ghastly object lesson to the working class on what will be their fate if they fail to satisfy their employers.
The modern welfare state is merely a slightly more sophisticated version of the workhouse. It first separates the deserving from the undeserving poor, then metes out varying degrees of humiliation according to category.
It is inconceivable that local communities could dream up such a horrific system for tormenting their own local destitute, who they probably know personally. Only the nation state is inhuman enough to design and implement it and even then it is difficult to implement consistently, as the system must necessarily be administered by human beings. Sadists are not always numerous enough to satisfy the demand and so must be specially trained. Its takes many years to turn a human being into a social worker. Every so often the public also becomes sickened by what is being done in its name and demands reform, then conditions must be "relaxed" for awhile.
This is the "welfare state", not some imaginary utopia in Sweden, where poverty has been abolished and the invalids, the unemployed and orphans all live in fairytale mansions, attend daily banquets replete with manicured servants and sleep in enormous feather beds at the expense of a joyful benevolent state. This is not so much a fantasy of the left, as a nightmare myth propagated by the capitalist right.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas