For centuries, governments have provided aid to the poor and needy. But over the past 100 years, an alternative ideal has come to the fore: extending publicly funded benefits to all citizens, regardless of their ability to provide for themselves. The shift in approach has yielded an enormous expansion of government, leaving public finances increasingly dominated by the cost of health and retirement benefits for the middle class.
This shift has been the subject of fierce controversy, most pointedly illustrated in an acrimonious debate between English scholars Richard Titmuss and Arthur Seldon during the mid-20th century.
Richard Titmuss advocated expanding publicly funded social benefits to all citizens. He viewed public benevolence for those in need as stingy and unreliable, and believed that "separate...services for poor people have always tended to be poor quality services." He resented means tests as inherently unfair to those above eligibility cutoffs, and argued that they would inevitably exclude many who required help. He also believed that restricting eligibility would deprive programs of durable cross-class popular support and compel value judgments that would impose a "sense of inferiority" on beneficiaries. Underlying Titmuss's ideal of uniform collective provision was a passion for socialism, which he argued was "about community as well as equality."
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Chris Pope is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.
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