Human societies have always needed safety nets to catch those who end up in need. The risks have always been there. Only recently has there been a global surge in government social spending. The major historical issues raised by this long delay are introduced in this chapter. Readers are given spoiler alerts about whether it had to be government that spread the nets, and about whether large-spending countries got the mix of social spending wrong more often than did low-spending governments. The conventional arguments for and against tax-based social spending are introduced.