From "Welfare State" to "Welfare World"

抄録

In the 20th Century most democratic industrialized countries have strived to be a "welfare state". Social policy planners, including politicians, scholars (if refered British models, Beveridge, Titmuss, T.H. Marshall, Tawney and others) contributed and invented tools. Those are social scurity system, social insurance and public assistance ; social services in health,housing, education, personal social service, often with positive discrimination ; full-employment policy ; reditribution policy by inheritance tax and progressive income tax ; and workers protection law etc. The root of the "welfare state" is to eliminate absolute poverty of its nation at least. We have succeeded in it to some extent in the developed countries. Despite many problems and dissatisfaction remains, basic orientation to "welfare state" survived. But when we turn to global situation, states which can be called by the name are still minor. There remains enormous (more than one billion) absolute poverty on the earth. When the welfare state idea is extended, a definition of "welfare world" must be that every people who is born on the earth has a right to live minimum meaningful life (world citizenship). We must mobilize our idea and tactics to make "welfare world" to be realized in the 21st century ,as we have succeeded in to establish "welfare state" in the 20th century. We must invent new world social policy. It will largely confront to world economic policy, and one of the most important points will beto control multinational corporations. Most urgent problems or even crises which humankind faces today could be summarized as 3W : Want (starving, absolute poverty and population explosion) ; Waste (earth scale destruction of environment) ; War (crazy killings and refugees discharge). Those are all closely interrelated. We must attack them simultaneously and systematically. The models invented so far are models mainly applicable to industrialized countries. They can not be applied directly to the developing or underdeveloped countries. And when thinking about the capacity of earth, it may be impossible for all nations to develop life styles at the same level as present developed countries enjoy. We might have to change our approaches to social development drastically. Some developed countries might have to lower their standards of living in several critical respects.We must understand and respect each other's diversity and learn to coexist. People have rights to live in their own culture peacefully. We must secure a safe earth environment cohabiting with other creatures too. Strategically and logically, if each country became a "welfare state", a "welfare world" can be simply and readily established. But even within the United Nations, there are many oppressive non-democratic goverments, so it is not realistic to expect too much from state initiatives. There must also be roles and tasks of NGOs in the context of a more internationally cooperative civil society. Emerging "information society" offers some grounds for optimism in this respect.