Wojtek wrote:
>[WS:] If it has been reduced, then it follows that it was in a much
better
>shape in the past, or so it seems by my logic. And if it was in a
better shape
>in the past, then someobody must have given it thatshape, no? That
someone can
>be either the bourgeoisie or the working class.
Non sequitur. There was no class homogeneous some"one", there were some"many" giving the west(!)european welfare state its shape after WWII. And in every country. from Great Britain over France to Westgermany, the coalition in building and sustaining the welfare state included the unions on the one hand - and business organizations on the other. Thats why it is difficult for labor to defend the welfare state, because this welfare was not its achievement alone, but based on a compromise: for not trying to limit the right to rule of the proprietors they where given some things in exchange. (And this step by step: Keep in mind, that only in the end of the sixties bigger rises in wages and cuts in working hours came to Westgermany.)
Now to defend welfare state in a situation, when the ruling class sees no need any longer to sustain all the elements of this compromise is not so easy. And it may bee not the best strategy: The slogan of the welfare state is based on the will of the ruling class to cooperate - and so the "defense" in large parts is a moral appeall to the
attackers to come back to good cooperation for the "common good".
And never forget, that Europe is more than the UK, France, Sweden and Germany: see Spain and Turkey, not to mention the changes after 1990. There was and is labor migration, were the rules of welfare state have only been used in parts with long delay.
Sebastian
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