The institutional redistribution model of welfare has been one of the principles of the British Welfare State. However, the current socio-political situation in Britain, as well as in any other western countries, seems to jeopardize its ideological grounds, such as, the ideas of socialism and egalitarianism. The study asks whether or not the institutional redistribution model can survive through the current international crisis of socialism. The study will examine in the historical context of British social policy three main concepts of the institutional redistribution model, that is, 'relative poverty', 'deprivation', and 'socialjustice and positive discrimination'. Firstly, it will be shown that in Britain the idea of relative poverty can be justified only by the idea of absolute poverty. Secondly, the idea of deprivation was originally neither a subjective nor a relative concept but an objective and absolute one. Finally, the idea of social justice and the policy principle of positive discrimination are theorised and justified not in terms of needs but the universalist principle of service provisions. As a conclusion, the institutional redistribution model in the British 'Welfare State' is not so much the product of socialist and egalitarian ideology as the product of the long standing tradition of British social policy. In that sense, the institutional redistribution model will survive through the current ideological crisis.
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