Welfare after Beveridge: state or civil society

Beveridge argued for the primacy of the state in providing welfare.  His critics then and since have argued for more support from civil society, from communal associations, churches, voluntary organisations.  This final lecture shows why obligations to others should be involuntary – and so why state support is fundamental.  The challenge is to cut free of the bureaucratic tangles and institutional corruption which afflict the welfare state today.

This is 1 in a series of 4 public lectures that Richard Sennett will deliver on Welfare After Beveridge.