Criticism of welfare

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The modern welfare state has been criticized on economic and moral grounds from all ends of the political spectrum. Many have argued that the provision of tax-funded services or transfer payments reduces the incentive for workers to seek employment, thereby reducing the need to work, reducing the rewards of work and exacerbating poverty. On the other hand, socialists typically criticize the welfare state as championed by social democrats as an attempt to legitimize and strengthen the capitalist economic system which conflicts with the socialist goal of replacing capitalism with a socialist economic system. [1]

Contents

Conservative criticism

People waiting in line for relief checks in the United States during the Great Depression Waiting for relief checks during Great depression.jpg
People waiting in line for relief checks in the United States during the Great Depression

In his 1912 book The Servile State , Anglo-French poet and social critic Hilaire Belloc, a devout Roman Catholic, argued that capitalism was inherently unstable, but that attempts to amend its defects through ever-more burdensome regulation could only lead to the rise of what he calls the "Servile State". According to Belloc, this servile state resembles ancient slavery in its reliance on positive law as opposed to custom or economic necessity by themselves. Austrian-born economist Friedrich Hayek mentions Belloc's Servile State favorably in his book The Road to Serfdom . [2] Along with others such as G. K. Chesterton and Eric Gill, Belloc advocated abolishing profit-making banking in favor of credit unions and replacing capitalism with a system they called distributism which they believed would preserve private property and revive the dignity of work exemplified by the small craftsmen and property holders of the Middle Ages.

Some conservatives in the United Kingdom such as James Batholomew and Theodore Dalrymple claim that the welfare state has produced a generation of dependents who prefer to remain on assistance and make no real effort to find employment, even though assistance is officially only available to those unable to work or who are temporarily unable to find work. The welfare state in the United Kingdom was created to provide certain people with a basic level of benefits in order to alleviate poverty, but these conservatives believe that it has fostered irresponsible and immature attitudes in many of its recipients. [3] [4]

Some British conservatives such as Conservative Party co-chairman Sayeeda Warsi also criticize the "'something for nothing' culture" of the welfare state, claiming that the high extent of the welfare state "discourages the unemployed from finding jobs". [5] 55% of people in England and 43% of people in Scotland believe that "benefits for unemployed people are too high and discourage them from finding jobs". [6]

According to political scientist Alan Ryan, "[m]odern conservatives argue that liberalism promises a degree of personal fulfillment that the welfare state cannot deliver and that attempts to deliver it will inevitably lead to disillusionment". Additionally, citizens' resentment of paying taxes to create benefits for others creates "hostility between more and less favored groups that is wholly at odds with what modern liberals desire". [7] Ryan also argued:

Moreover, the welfare state must employ an extensive bureaucracy whose members are granted discretionary powers and charged by law to use those powers for the welfare of their clients. This means that classical liberals' concern for the rule of law and the curtailing of arbitrary discretion is ignored: bureaucrats are given resources to disburse to their clients. [...] The liberation the welfare state promises – liberation from anxiety, poverty, and the cramped circumstances of working-class existence – is easily obtained by the educated middle class and is impossible to achieve for most others. There is thus a grave risk of disillusionment with liberalism in general as a result of its failure when it overextends itself. Some writers suppose that the worldwide popularity of conservative governments during the 1980s is explained by this consideration. [7]

Conservative and libertarian groups such as The Heritage Foundation [8] and the Cato Institute [9] argue that welfare creates dependence, a disincentive to work and reduces the opportunity of individuals to manage their own lives. [10] This dependence is called a "culture of poverty", which is said to undermine people from finding meaningful work. [9] Many of these groups also point to the large budget used to maintain these programs and assert that it is wasteful. [8]

In the book Losing Ground , Charles Murray argues that welfare not only increases poverty, but also increases other problems such as single-parent households, and crime. [11]

Liberal and libertarian criticism

Advocates of classical liberalism, economic liberalism and neoliberalism such as adherents of the Chicago school of economics like Milton Friedman faulted the New Deal version of social insurance for creating "notches" that perverted economic incentives, with J. Bradford DeLong arguing:

The government, Milton Friedman and others argued, told the poor: make more money and we will take away your free housing, food stamps, and income support. People are rational, Friedman said, so they will not work for long if they get nothing or next to nothing for it. The big difference between the Malthusian conservative critics of social insurance in the early nineteenth century and the Chicago critics of the 1970s is that the Chicago critics had a point: Providing public support to the "worthy" poor, and then removing it when they began to stand on their own feet, poisoned incentives and was unlikely to lead to good outcomes. And so, from 1970 to 2000, a broad coalition of conservatives (who wanted to see the government stop encouraging immorality), centrists (who wanted government money spent effectively), and leftists (who wanted poverty alleviated) removed the "notches" from the social-insurance system. Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and even George W. Bush and their supporters created the current system, in which tax rates and eligibility thresholds are not punitive disincentives to enterprise. [12]

Certain American libertarians criticize the welfare state because they believe welfare programs do not work to reduce poverty, improve education, or improve health or retirement. According to them, welfare programs also increase out-of-wedlock births and decrease the incentive to work. Moreover, they believe welfare programs reduce freedom by reducing the opportunity of individuals to manage their own lives. [13]

Social stigma is prevalent towards recipients of public assistance programs. This includes programs frequently utilized by families struggling with poverty such as Head Start and AFDC (Aid To Families With Dependent Children). The value of self-reliance is often at the center of feelings of shame and the fewer people value self reliance the less stigma affects them psychologically. [14] [15] Stigma towards welfare recipients has been proven to increase passivity and dependency in poor people and has further solidified their status and feelings of inferiority. [14] [16] Caseworkers frequently treat recipients of welfare disrespectfully and make assumptions about deviant behavior and reluctance to work. Many single mothers cited stigma as the primary reason they wanted to exit welfare as quickly as possible. They often feel the need to conceal food stamps to escape judgement associated with welfare programs. Stigma is a major factor contributing to the duration and breadth of poverty in developed societies which largely affects single mothers. [14] Recipients of public assistance are viewed as objects of the community rather than members allowing for them to be perceived as enemies of the community which is how stigma enters collective thought. [17] Amongst single mothers in poverty, lack of health care benefits is one of their greatest challenges in terms of exiting poverty. [14] Traditional values of self reliance increase feelings of shame amongst welfare recipients making them more susceptible to being stigmatized. [14] [18]

Socialist criticism

Critiques of the welfare state and of social welfare programs have come from various socialists perspectives, ranging from Marxists to anarchists. In these perspectives, criticism of the welfare state often goes alongside criticism of the structural issues of capitalism and the inability for social welfare measures to solve fundamental economic issues which Marxists consider inherent to the capitalist mode of production. Initially, social insurance schemes were promoted by liberals and conservatives to appeal to working class voters to undercut the appeal of socialism. While some socialist parties tolerated social insurance, socialists often viewed advocacy of such programs as antithetical to their goal of replacing capitalism with socialism. [19]

Marxian socialists argue that modern social democratic welfare policies are unable to solve the fundamental and structural issues of capitalism such as cyclical fluctuations, exploitation and alienation. Accordingly, social democratic programs intended to ameliorate the issues of capitalism—such as unemployment benefits and taxation on profits—create further contradictions in capitalism by limiting the efficiency of the capitalist system by reducing incentives for capitalists to invest in further production. As a result, the welfare state only serves to legitimize and prolong the exploitative and contradiction-laden system of capitalism to society's detriment. [20]

Democratic socialists such as the American philosopher and mathematician David Schweickart contrast social democracy with democratic socialism by defining the former as an attempt to strengthen the welfare state and the latter as a political movement seeking to create an alternative to capitalism. According to Schweickart, the democratic socialist critique of social democracy is that capitalism can never be sufficiently "humanized" and any attempt to suppress the economic contradictions of capitalism would only cause them to emerge elsewhere. For example, attempts to reduce unemployment too much would result in inflation while too much job security would erode labor discipline. As socialists, democratic socialists aim to create an alternative to capitalism. [21] In contrast to social democracy, democratic socialists advocate a post-capitalist economic system based either on market socialism combined with worker self-management, or on some form of participatory-economic planning. [22]

Market socialism is also critical of and contrasted with social democratic welfare states. While one common goal of both systems is to achieve greater social and economic equality, market socialism does so by changes in enterprise ownership and management whereas social democracy attempts to do so by government-imposed taxes and subsidies on privately owned enterprises to finance welfare programs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt III and David Belkin criticize social democracy for maintaining a property-owning capitalist class which has an active interest in reversing social democratic welfare policies and a disproportionate amount of power as a class to influence governmental policy. [23]

Karl Marx famously critiqued the basic institutions of the welfare state in his Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League by warning against the programs advanced by liberal democrats. While Marx proclaimed that the communists had to support the bourgeoisie wherever it acted as a revolutionary, progressive class because "bourgeois liberties had first to be conquered and then criticised", [24] he specifically argued that measures designed to increase wages, improve working conditions and provide welfare payments would be used to dissuade the working class away from socialism and the revolutionary consciousness he believed was necessary to achieve a socialist economy and would therefore be a threat to genuine structural changes to society by making the conditions of workers in capitalism more tolerable through welfare schemes. [25]

Eduard Bernstein, a reformist social democrat, was skeptical of the welfare state and social welfare legislation. While Bernstein viewed it as something helpful for the working class, he feared that state aid to the poor might sanction a new form of pauperism. Ultimately, Bernstein believed that any such policies should be of secondary concern to the main social democratic concern of tackling capitalism as the source of poverty and inequality. [26]

The most extreme criticism of states and governments is made by anarchists, who advocate for the abolition of all social hierarchies, including the state. Despite the anti-state and anti-market views of social anarchism, most anarchists ultimately advocate for the strengthening of the welfare state, arguing that social safety nets are short-term goals for the working class.[ citation needed ] According to Noam Chomsky, "social democrats and anarchists always agreed, fairly generally, on so-called 'welfare state measures'" and "[a]narchists propose other measures to deal with these problems, without recourse to state authority". [27] Some anarchists believe in stopping welfare programs only if it means abolishing both government and capitalism. [28]

See also

Related Research Articles

Distributism is an economic theory asserting that the world's productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated. Developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, distributism was based upon Catholic social teaching principles, especially Pope Leo XIII's teachings in his encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) and Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo anno (1931). It has influenced Anglo Christian Democratic movements, and has been recognized as one of many influences on the social market economy.

Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems. Social ownership can take various forms, including public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. Traditionally, socialism is on the left wing of the political spectrum. Types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, and the structure of management in organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-capitalism</span> Political ideology and movement opposed to capitalism

Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as socialism or communism.

A mixed economy is an economic system that accepts both private businesses and nationalized government services, like public utilities, safety, military, welfare, and education. A mixed economy also promotes some form of regulation to protect the public, the environment, or the interests of the state.

Participatory economics, often abbreviated Parecon, is an economic system based on participatory decision making as the primary economic mechanism for allocation in society. In the system, the say in decision-making is proportional to the impact on a person or group of people. Participatory economics is a form of a socialist decentralized planned economy involving the collective ownership of the means of production. It is a proposed alternative to contemporary capitalism and centralized planning. This economic model is primarily associated with political theorist Michael Albert and economist Robin Hahnel, who describes participatory economics as an anarchist economic vision.

Economic interventionism, sometimes also called state interventionism, is an economic policy position favouring government intervention in the market process with the intention of correcting market failures and promoting the general welfare of the people. An economic intervention is an action taken by a government or international institution in a market economy in an effort to impact the economy beyond the basic regulation of fraud, enforcement of contracts, and provision of public goods and services. Economic intervention can be aimed at a variety of political or economic objectives, such as promoting economic growth, increasing employment, raising wages, raising or reducing prices, promoting income equality, managing the money supply and interest rates, increasing profits, or addressing market failures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of socialism</span> Overview of criticism of an economic system and political ideology

Criticism of socialism is any critique of socialist economics and socialist models of organization and their feasibility, as well as the political and social implications of adopting such a system. Some critiques are not necessarily directed toward socialism as a system but rather toward the socialist movement, parties, or existing states. Some critics consider socialism to be a purely theoretical concept that should be criticized on theoretical grounds, such as in the economic calculation problem and the socialist calculation debate, while others hold that certain historical examples exist and that they can be criticized on practical grounds. Because there are many types of socialism, most critiques are focused on a specific type of socialism, that of the command economy and the experience of Soviet-type economies that may not apply to all forms of socialism as different models of socialism conflict with each other over questions of property ownership, economic coordination and how socialism is to be achieved. Critics of specific models of socialism might be advocates of a different type of socialism.

State Socialism was a set of social programs implemented in the German Empire that were initiated by Otto von Bismarck in 1883 as remedial measures to appease the working class and detract support for socialism and the Social Democratic Party of Germany following earlier attempts to achieve the same objective through Bismarck's Anti-Socialist Laws. As a term, it was coined by Bismarck's liberal opposition to these social welfare policies, but it was later accepted by Bismarck. This did not prevent the Social Democrats from becoming the biggest party in the Reichstag by 1912. According to historian Jonathan Steinberg, "[a]ll told, Bismarck's system was a massive success—except in one respect. His goal to keep the Social Democratic Party out of power utterly failed. The vote for the Social Democratic Party went up and by 1912 they were the biggest party in the Reichstag".

Economic progressivism or fiscalprogressivism is a political and economic philosophy incorporating the socioeconomic principles of social democrats and political progressives. These views are often rooted in the concept of social justice and have the goal of improving the human condition through government regulation, social protections and the maintenance of public goods. It is not to be confused with the more general idea of progress in relation to economic growth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of capitalism</span> Arguments against the economic system of capitalism

Criticism of capitalism is a critique of political economy that involves the rejection of, or dissatisfaction with the economic system of capitalism and its outcomes. Criticisms typically range from expressing disagreement with particular aspects or outcomes of capitalism to rejecting the principles of the capitalist system in its entirety.

Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and supports a gradualist, reformist and democratic approach towards achieving socialism, usually under a social liberal framework. In practice, social democracy takes a form of socially managed welfare capitalism, achieved with partial public ownership, economic interventionism, and policies promoting social equality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Welfare's effect on poverty</span>

The effects of social welfare on poverty have been the subject of various studies.

Democratic socialism is a left-wing set of political philosophies that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within a market socialist, decentralised planned, or democratic centrally planned socialist economy. Democratic socialists argue that capitalism is inherently incompatible with the values of freedom, equality, and solidarity and that these ideals can only be achieved through the realisation of a socialist society. Although most democratic socialists seek a gradual transition to socialism, democratic socialism can support revolutionary or reformist politics to establish socialism. Democratic socialism was popularised by socialists who opposed the backsliding towards a one-party state in the Soviet Union and other nations during the 20th century.

State socialism is a political and economic ideology within the socialist movement that advocates state ownership of the means of production. This is intended either as a temporary measure, or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition from the capitalist to the socialist mode of production or to a communist society. State socialism was first theorised by Ferdinand Lassalle. It advocates a planned economy controlled by the state in which all industries and natural resources are state-owned.

Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that proposes to shift ownership and decision-making power from corporate shareholders and corporate managers to a larger group of public stakeholders that includes workers, consumers, suppliers, communities and the broader public. No single definition or approach encompasses economic democracy, but most proponents claim that modern property relations externalize costs, subordinate the general well-being to private profit and deny the polity a democratic voice in economic policy decisions. In addition to these moral concerns, economic democracy makes practical claims, such as that it can compensate for capitalism's inherent effective demand gap.

Types of socialism include a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production and organizational self-management of enterprises as well as the political theories and movements associated with socialism. Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective or cooperative ownership, or to citizen ownership of equity in which surplus value goes to the working class and hence society as a whole. There are many varieties of socialism and no single definition encapsulates all of them, but social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms Socialists disagree about the degree to which social control or regulation of the economy is necessary, how far society should intervene, and whether government, particularly existing government, is the correct vehicle for change.

The socialist mode of production, or simply (Marxist) socialism or communism as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the terms communism and socialism interchangeably, is a specific historical phase of economic development and its corresponding set of social relations that emerge from capitalism in the schema of historical materialism within Marxist theory. The Marxist definition of socialism is that of production for use-value, therefore the law of value no longer directs economic activity. Marxist production for use is coordinated through conscious economic planning. According to Marx, distribution of products is based on the principle of "to each according to his needs"; Soviet models often distributed products based on the principle of "to each according to his contribution". The social relations of socialism are characterized by the proletariat effectively controlling the means of production, either through cooperative enterprises or by public ownership or private artisanal tools and self-management. Surplus value goes to the working class and hence society as a whole.

Social ownership is a type of property where an asset is recognized to be in the possession of society as a whole rather than individual members or groups within it. Social ownership of the means of production is the defining characteristic of a socialist economy, and can take the form of community ownership, state ownership, common ownership, employee ownership, cooperative ownership, and citizen ownership of equity. Within the context of socialist economics it refers particularly to the appropriation of the surplus product, produced by the means of production, or the wealth that comes from it, to society at large or the workers themselves. Traditionally, social ownership implied that capital and factor markets would cease to exist under the assumption that market exchanges within the production process would be made redundant if capital goods were owned and integrated by a single entity or network of entities representing society. However, the articulation of models of market socialism where factor markets are utilized for allocating capital goods between socially owned enterprises broadened the definition to include autonomous entities within a market economy.

Market socialism is a type of economic system involving social ownership of the means of production within the framework of a market economy. Various models for such a system exist, usually involving cooperative enterprises and sometimes a mix that includes public or private enterprises. In contrast to the majority of historic socialist economies, which have substituted the market mechanism for some form of economic planning, market socialists wish to retain the use of supply and demand signals to guide the allocation of capital goods and the means of production. Under such a system, depending on whether socially owned firms are state-owned or operated as worker cooperatives, profits may variously be used to directly remunerate employees, accrue to society at large as the source of public finance, or be distributed amongst the population in a social dividend.

Socialist economics comprises the economic theories, practices and norms of hypothetical and existing socialist economic systems. A socialist economic system is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production that may take the form of autonomous cooperatives or direct public ownership wherein production is carried out directly for use rather than for profit. Socialist systems that utilize markets for allocating capital goods and factors of production among economic units are designated market socialism. When planning is utilized, the economic system is designated as a socialist planned economy. Non-market forms of socialism usually include a system of accounting based on calculation-in-kind to value resources and goods.

References

  1. ↑ Clarke, Peter (19 November 1981). Liberals and Social Democrats. Cambridge University Press. p. 2. ISBN   978-0521286510. On purely socialist criteria, social democratic reform is always a failure since all it does is invent new devices for strengthening the system, which should itself be attacked.
  2. ↑ Hayek, Friedrich (1944) [2007]. The Road to Serfdom . (London: University of Chicago Press. p. 67.
  3. ↑ Bartholomew, James (2013). The Welfare State We're In (3 ed.). Biteback. p. 320. ISBN   978-1849544504. Archived from the original on 2020-09-18. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  4. ↑ Dalrymple, Theodore (2007). Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses . Ivan R. Dee. p. 360. ISBN   978-1-56663-721-3.
  5. ↑ "Labour's 'something for nothing' culture must end" Archived 2014-04-11 at the Wayback Machine .
  6. ↑ "British Social Attitudes Survey". Archived December 14, 2011, at the Wayback Machine .
  7. 1 2 Ryan, Alan (2012). The Making of Modern Liberalism. Princeton and Oxford University Presses. p. 26.
  8. 1 2 Confronting the Unsustainable Growth of Welfare Entitlements: Principles of Reform and the Next Steps", The Heritage Foundation
  9. 1 2 Niskanen, A. Welfare and the Culture of Poverty The Cato Journal Vol. 16 No. 1
  10. ↑ Tanner, Michael (2008). "Welfare State" . In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 540–42. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n327. ISBN   978-1-4129-6580-4. LCCN   2008009151. OCLC   750831024.
  11. ↑ Murray, Charles (1984). Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950–1980. Basic Books. pp. 58, 125, 115.
  12. ↑ DeLong, J. Bradford. "American Conservative's Crisis of Ideas".
  13. ↑ Tanner, Michael (2008). "Welfare State". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 540–542. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n327. ISBN   978-1-4129-6580-4. LCCN   2008009151. OCLC   750831024.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 Rogers-Dillon, Robin (1 December 1995). "The dynamics of welfare stigma". Qualitative Sociology. 18 (4): 439–456. doi:10.1007/BF02404490. ISSN   1573-7837. S2CID   144636532.
  15. ↑ "How Long-Term Unemployment May Mess with Your Mental Health". Psych Central. 2021-11-05. Retrieved 2023-10-24.
  16. ↑ Drasch, Katrin (2019). "The social stigma of unemployment: consequences of stigma consciousness on job search attitudes, behaviour and success".
  17. ↑ Davis, Liane V.; Hagen, Jan L. (26 July 2016). "Stereotypes and Stigma: What's Changed for Welfare Mothers". Affilia. 11 (3): 319–337. doi:10.1177/088610999601100304. S2CID   144933839.
  18. ↑ "Individualism Is A Myth — No One Is Completely Self-Sufficient". Scary Mommy. 2021-06-15. Retrieved 2023-11-26.
  19. ↑ Hicks, Alexander (20 January 2000). Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism: A Century of Income Security Politics . Cornell University Press. p.  16. ISBN   978-0801485565. Although insurance reform was merely tolerated in early socialist manifestos, passage of such reforms appears to have been a hallmark of conservative and liberal appeals to working-class voters and responses to socialist threats at least in Germany and the United Kingdom.
  20. ↑ Market Socialism: The Debate Among Socialists, by Schweickart, David; Lawler, James; Ticktin, Hillel; Ollman, Bertell. 1998. pp. 60–61. "The Marxist answers that [...] it involves limiting the incentive system of the market through providing minimum wages, high levels of unemployment insurance, reducing the size of the reserve army of labour, taxing profits, and taxing the wealthy. As a result, capitalists will have little incentive to invest and the workers will have little incentive to work. Capitalism works because, as Marx remarked, it is a system of economic force (coercion)."
  21. ↑ Schweickart, David (2006). "Democratic Socialism". Archived 17 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine . Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice. "Social democrats supported and tried to strengthen the basic institutions of the welfare state—pensions for all, public health care, public education, unemployment insurance. They supported and tried to strengthen the labor movement. The latter, as socialists, argued that capitalism could never be sufficiently humanized, and that trying to suppress the economic contradictions in one area would only see them emerge in a different guise elsewhere. (E.g., if you push unemployment too low, you'll get inflation; if job security is too strong, labor discipline breaks down; etc.)"
  22. ↑ Schweickart, David (2006). "Democratic Socialism". Archived 17 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine . Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice. "Virtually all (democratic) socialists have distanced themselves from the economic model long synonymous with 'socialism,' i.e. the Soviet model of a non-market, centrally-planned economy. [...] Some have endorsed the concept of 'market socialism,' a post-capitalist economy that retains market competition, but socializes the means of production, and, in some versions, extends democracy to the workplace. Some hold out for a non-market, participatory economy. All democratic socialists agree on the need for a democratic alternative to capitalism."
  23. ↑ Roosevelt, Frank; Belkin, David (1994). Why Market Socialism?. M. E. Sharpe, Inc. pp. 314–315. ISBN   1-56324-465-9. Social democracy achieves greater egalitarianism via ex post government taxes and subsidies, where market socialism does so via ex ante changes in patterns of enterprise ownership. [...] [T]he maintenance of property-owning capitalists under social democracy assures the presence of a disproportionately powerful class with a continuing interest in challenging social democratic government policies.
  24. ↑ Bernstein, Eduard (April 1897). "Karl Marx and Social Reform". Progressive Review (7).
  25. ↑ Marx, Karl (1850). "Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League". Retrieved January 5, 2013 from Marxists.org. "However, the democratic petty bourgeois want better wages and security for the workers, and hope to achieve this by an extension of state employment and by welfare measures; in short, they hope to bribe the workers with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable."
  26. ↑ Jackson, Ben. "social democracy." The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Second Edition. Eds. Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
  27. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 15 February 2009. Retrieved 19 August 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  28. ↑ "J.5 What alternative social organisations do anarchists create?". An Anarchist FAQ .
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