The Welfare State: Pensions, Health, and Education

by Arthur Seldon, Colin Robinson

Volume 6 of The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon examines the failure of state-supported welfare programs to benefit the people most in need of help. The eight articles and one book in this volume encompass almost forty years of criticism of the welfare state.

Seldon argues that the welfare state cannot, in the long run, solve the problem of poverty. It is driven by misguided egalitarian views which make it universalist, providing benefits for the middle classes as well as the poor. Because it finances welfare through taxation, it damages incentives to work. Moreover it diminishes motivations to save and to provide for one’s family as the state appears to take over such responsibilities.

Once “free” welfare services are begun they are very difficult to stop. But, says Seldon, permanent state welfare is unnecessary: as people’s incomes rise, most are capable of providing for themselves and their families. In the end, people will revolt against inferior state services and the state will have to retreat.

The entire series includes:

Volume 1: The Virtues of Capitalism (September 2004)
Volume 2: The State Is Rolling Back (November 2004)
Volume 3: Everyman's Dictionary of Economics (January 2005)
Volume 4: Introducing Market Forces into "Public" Services (February 2005)
Volume 5: Government Failure and Over-Government (May 2005)
Volume 6: The Welfare State: Pensions, Health, and Education (October 2005)
Volume 7: The IEA, the LSE, and the Influence of Ideas (December 2005)

306 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2005

About the author

Arthur Seldon was the Editorial Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs from the late 1950s until the later 1980s. At the IEA, he directed a publishing programme that included some of the world’s most eminent economists, including FA Hayek and Milton Friedman. Arthur Seldon was a prolific author and one of the most influential economists of the late twentieth century.