¹ This paper is focussed on the ways in which the four major needs of industrial man, viz. income security, medical care, education and housing, are met. Of the different ways of meeting these needs, fiscal measures have been excluded from this study, mainly because of the difficulty of marshalling evidence on taxation.

² Kerr, Clark et al. , Industrialism and Industrial Man, London: Heinemann, 1962.Google Scholar See also Postscript to ‘Industrialism and Industrial Man’, International Labour Review, Vol. 103, No. 6, 06 1971, pp. 519–40,Google Scholar by the same authors. In some form or another the notion of similarity or increasing similarity of the social structure of industrial societies is to be found in the work of many sociologists and economists. Galbraith's, J. K.The New Industrial State, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1967,Google Scholar is perhaps the best-known recent example. For a critique of convergence theory see Goldthorpe, J. H., ‘Social Stratification in Industrial Society’, Halmos, P. (ed.), The Development of Industrial Societies (Sociological Review Monograph No. 8), Keele: University of Keele, 1964, pp. 97–122,Google Scholar and ‘The Future of Futurology’ European Journal of Sociology, Vol. XII, No. 2, 1971, pp. 263–88;Google ScholarFeldman, Arnold S. and Moore, Wilbert S., ‘Industrialization and Industrialism: Convergence and Differentiation’, Transactions of the Fifth World Congress of Sociology 1962, Vol. 2, pp. 151–69.Google Scholar For a defence of convergence theory see Dunning, E. G. and Hopper, E. I., ‘Industrialization and the Problem of Convergence: A Critical Note’, Sociological Review, NS Vol. 14, No. 2, 1966, pp. 163–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ Kerr, et al. , Industrialism and Industrial Man (op. cit.), esp. chs. 2 and 10.Google Scholar

⁴ Ibid., ch. 3.

⁵ Ibid., p. 180. Kerr et al. maintain that the closer a social pattern is to technology the more it is likely to converge (p. 285). However, the notion of closeness to technology is far from unambiguous and nowhere do the authors discuss it systematically. It is clear, nonetheless, that welfare is seen as a convergent aspect of the social structure. Thus, ‘In the logic of industrialization, the responsibility for guaranteeing the minimum welfare and security of industrial man rests in large measure upon his managers and his government’ (p. 180). In short, the state and the enterprise are seen as the twin pillars of welfare in industrial society. However, since the discussion of welfare is brief and en passant we thought it necessary, and legitimate, to relate the structure and development of welfare to the general theme of Industrialism and Industrial Man.

⁶ Ibid., pp. 174–81, 229, 273–6, 286.

⁷ Clearly, no single country can be considered as ‘representing’ Western industrial countries as a whole with respect to the structure and development of welfare. However, a study of state welfare in 20 Western industrial countries shows that in nature and scope, Britain's social services are in line with the majority of Western countries and her level of expenditure on state welfare is quite close to the mean for these countries. Some countries, e.g., the U.S.A., were found to deviate a good deal with respect to income security and medical care from the typical pattern. See Mishra, Ramesh, ‘Welfare and Industrial Man’, Sociological Review. NS Vol. 21, No. 4, 11, 1973, pp. 535–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ For example, per capita income and energy consumption, the proportion of labour force in non-agricultural occupations and urbanization. For per capital income in 1965 see Hagen, Everett E. and Hawrylyshyn, Oli, ‘Analysis of World Income and Growth 1955–1965’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 18, No. 1, Pt. II, 10 1969, p. 36;CrossRefGoogle Scholar for energy consumption, United Nations, Statistical Yearbook 1971, New York, 1972, pp. 337, 339;Google Scholar for labour force, Yearbook of Labour Statistics 1972, International Labour Organisation, Geneva, 1972, pp. 140 ;1.Google Scholar

⁹ This is implicit in the long and unspecified time-scale of convergence envisaged by Kerr and his associates. See Kerr, et al. , op. cit., pp. 33–4 and ch. 10 passim.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See, for example, Rostow, W. W., The Stages of Economic Growth, London: Cambridge University Press, 1960, pp. 38, 59.Google Scholar

¹¹ The Report from His Majesty's Commissioners for Enquiring into the Administration and Practical Operation of the Poor Laws, H.M.S.O., London, 1834.Google Scholar

¹² See Bruce, Maurice, The Coming of the Welfare State, London: Batsford, Second edition, 1965, pp. 76–87.Google Scholar

¹³ Twelfth Report of the Poor Law Board, H.M.S.O. 1860, p. 7.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Mitchell, B. R. and Deane, Phyllis, Abstract of British Historical Statistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962, pp. 366, 396–8.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Local authorities other than the Poor Law Guardians were empowered to build hospitals in 1875. See Bruce, , op. cit., p. 103.Google Scholar

¹⁶ During the period under review (1830–60), public health measures consisted of compulsory vaccination and the removal of nuisances. The Poor Law authorities were involved in the administration of both, especially in rural areas, but vaccination was not regarded as poor relief. Neither compulsory vaccination nor the other public health measures were effectively carried out until the 1870s. See, for example, The Final Report of the Royal Commission on Vaccination, H.M.S.O., London, 1896, p. 33.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Peacock, Alan T. and Wiseman, Jack, The Growth of Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom, London: Oxford University Press, 1961,Google Scholar gives data on public expenditure from 1890 onwards (p. 86). As a proportion of national income, expenditure on social services amounted to 1.9% in 1890 and 2.6% in 1900 compared with 2.4% in 1821 and 2.0% in 1831 on the Poor Laws (see Table 1 above).

¹⁸ After 1885 Poor Law medical relief did not disfranchise except for the Poor Law Guardians––2 elections. All other forms of poor relief disqualified from voting in local and Parliamentary elections until 1918. See Keith-Lucas, B., The English Local Government Franchise, Oxford: Blackwell, 1952, pp. 161–2Google Scholar and Abel-Smith, B., The Hospitals 1800–1948, London: Heinemann, 1964, pp. 129–30.Google Scholar

¹⁹ For the role of charity in early and mid-Victorian Britain see Owen, David, English Philanthropy 1660–1960, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964, chs. VI and XVII.CrossRefGoogle Scholar By the mid-1880s, the income of London charities alone was said to exceed the revenue of several European governments, including those of Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland (ibid., p. 49). According to one estimate, the charities in England were spending ‘tens of millions of pounds’ in the 1860s compared with government expenditure of £5.8 million in 1861 and £7.9 million in 1871 on poor relief. See Hanson, C. G., ‘Welfare before the Welfare State’, Institute of Economic Affairs, The Long Debate on Poverty, London: 1972, p. 117.Google Scholar Membership of various friendly societies, mainly providing sickness and death benefits, was estimated at 4 million in 1872. Welfare benefits were also provided by the trade unions whose membership was, however, below 1 million in the 1870s. See Gosden, P. H. J. H., The Friendly Societies in England 1815–1875, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1961, pp. 7, 13–4.Google Scholar

²⁰ Rimlinger, Gaston V., Welfare Policy and Industrialization in Europe, America and Russia, New York: John Wiley, 1971, p. 258.Google Scholar

²¹ Field, Mark G., Doctor and Patient in Soviet Russia, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957, pp. 16–7, 28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²² Rosen, Seymour M., Education and Modernisation in the USSR. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1971, p. 32.Google Scholar

²³ See Balinky, Alexander S., ‘Non-housing Objectives of Soviet Housing Policy’; Problems of Communism, Vol. X, No. 4, 07–08, 1961, pp. 17–8;Google ScholarSosnovy, T., ‘The Soviet Housing Situation Today’, Soviet Studies, Vol. XI, No. 1, 07 1959, p. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁴ Rimlinger, , op. cit., pp. 260, 266–7.Google Scholar

²⁵ Madison, Bernice Q., Social Welfare in the Soviet Union, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968, p. 52.Google Scholar

²⁶ Rimlinger, , op. cit., pp. 263, 271.Google Scholar

²⁷ Ibid., pp. 266–7.

²⁸ Ibid. See also Rimlinger, Gaston V., ‘Social Security, Incentives and Controls in the US and USSR’ in Zald, Mayer N. (ed.), Social Welfare Institutions, New York: John Wiley, 1965, p. 114.Google Scholar

²⁹ Rimlinger, , Welfare Policy and Industrialization (op. cit.), pp. 264–5.Google Scholar

³⁰ Ibid., pp. 274–6, 280, 284; Madison, , op. cit., pp. 58–9, 195.Google Scholar

³¹ Block, Alexander, ‘Soviet Housing: The Historical Aspect’. Soviet Studies, Vol. Ill, No. 1, 07 1951, pp. 1–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Since over 60% of the Soviet population was still living in rural areas in 1950 (Bergson, Abram and Kuznets, Simon (eds.), Economic Trends in the Soviet Union, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 72–3),CrossRefGoogle Scholar the large majority of the Soviet population lived in private sector housing during the period of early industrialization. Much of this ‘private sector’, however, consisted of somewhat primitive cottages built by the peasants themselves.

³² Of the total urban housing stock, just over one-half was publicly owned in 1923, nearly three-fifths in 1940 and two-thirds in 1950. See Sosnovy, , op. cit., p. 14.Google Scholar

³³ Ibid., p. 4.

³⁴ Ibid., pp. 2, 13.

³⁵ Witt, Nicholas De, Education and Professional Employment in the USSR, National Science Foundation, U.S. Govt. Printing Office, Washington, 1961, pp. 64–5.Google Scholar

³⁸ The share of consumption (household plus communal services) in the national product was 70% in 1928, 63% in 1937, 61% in 1940 and 45% in 1944. After the war-time low it rose to around 60% in mid-1950s. See Janet Chapman, ‘Consumption’, in Bergson, and Kuznets, , op. cit., p. 262.Google Scholar In the United Kingdom, the share of consumption in the national product in the 1860s (the earliest date for which estimates are available) was well over 80%. See Deane, and Cole, , op. cit., p. 332.Google Scholar

³⁷ In 1926 over 80% of the labour force consisted of farmers and handicraftsmen (roughly ‘workers on their own account’) and only 11.4% of wage and salary earners. The corresponding proportions were 57.3% and 38.9% in 1939 and 41.2% and 55.5% in 1959 (Bergson, and Kuznets, , op. cit., p. 84).Google Scholar Thus the proportion of population covered by state income security was rising rapidly throughout this period.

⁸⁸ Rimlinger, , op. cit., p. 280.Google Scholar

³⁹ Ibid., pp. 274–5.

⁴⁰ See Roberts, David, Victorian Origins of the British Welfare State, Archon: Hamdon, 1969.Google Scholar

⁴¹ See Taylor, Arthur J., Laissez-Faire and State Intervention in Nineteenth Century Britain, London: Macmillan, 1972, esp. pp. 13–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a summary of this controversy.

⁴² See Bruce, , op. cit., pp. 126, 171–3, 183–9, 245–6.Google Scholar

⁴³ Though we have not attempted to quantify any of the three welfare models, statutory services in education, medical care and income security covering at least the majority of the population may be regarded as one of the basic features of the institutional model. In this respect, the main lacuna in state welfare in the 1930s was the absence of medical care for the dependents of the insured population. See Bruce, , op. cit., p. 213.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ See Reid, G. L. and Robertson, D. J. (eds.), Fringe Benefits, Labour Costs and Social Security, London: Allen and Unwin, 1965, esp.Google ScholarWiseman, Jack ‘Occupational Pension Schemes’, pp. 169–70.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Ibid.

⁴⁶ Reid, and Robertson, , op. cit., pp. 24, 29.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ See, for example, G. L. Reid, ‘Sick Pay’, and Jack Wiseman, ‘Occupational Pension Schemes’ in Reid, and Robertson, , op. cit., esp. pp. 169–80 and 219.Google Scholar At the end of 1967, 65% of all male employees and 50% of all employees in the United Kingdom were members of occupational pension schemes. See Government Actuary, Occupational Pension Schemes, Third Survey, H.M.S.O., London, 1968, p. 8.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ For example, the total membership of registered friendly societies fell from 6.2 million in 1909 to 4.8 million in 1970, while the total population of Britain rose by 50% between 1901 and 1970. See Henson, C. G., ‘Welfare before the Welfare State’, Institute of Economic Affairs, The Long Debate on Poverty, London, 1972, p. 137.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See Rimlinger, , op. cit., pp. 286;Google ScholarMadison, , op. cit., pp. 195–6.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Rimlinger, , op. cit., pp. 285, 290.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Ibid., pp. 292–3.

⁵² Witt, De, op. cit., p. 64.Google Scholar

⁵³ See Donnison, D. V., The Government of Housing, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967, pp. 118–9;Google ScholarBarry, Donald D., ‘Housing in the USSR’, Problems of Communism, Vol. 18, No. 3, 05–06 1969, pp. 3–4, 8.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Balinky, , op. cit., pp. 17–8, 20, 22.Google ScholarWitt, De, op. cit., p. 64.Google ScholarGrant, Nigel, Soviet Education, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968, pp. 75–6, 83.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Block, , op. cit., p. 6.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Sosnovy, , op. cit., p. 14.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Barry, , op. cit., p. 10;Google ScholarDonnison, , op. cit., p. 6.Google Scholar In the 1960s, co-operative housing was expected to constitute about 10% of urban residential building.

⁵⁸ Increasing urbanisation is also likely to have the same effect since housing in the rural areas has been almost exclusively owner-occupied. For Soviet housing drive see Hanson, Philip, The Consumer in the Soviet Economy, London: Macmillan, 1968, pp. 66–7.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Field, , op. cit., pp. 19, 30;Google ScholarSir Newsholme, Arthur and Kingsbury, John A., Red Medicine, London: Heinneman, 1934, pp. 218–9.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ A World Health Organisation team reporting on Soviet medical care in 1958 wrote that ‘although private practice is not forbidden, it is so restricted that it exercises no influence whatever in the general set-up of health services in the country’. See Health Services in the USSR, W.H.O., Geneva, 1960, p. 11.Google Scholar According to a Soviet source (Oct. 1965), however, ‘more than fifteen hundred patients visit a clinic on Kirov Street in Moscow every day, paying a fee for their treatment’.Quoted in Heinrich Vogel, ‘Satisfaction of Consumer Needs’, in Treml, Vladimir G. (ed.), The Development of the Soviet Economy: Plan and Performance, New York: Praeger, 1968, p. 204.Google Scholar

⁶¹ In 1958, about 10 million Soviet citizens were said to be insured under various schemes, including fire and related risks, life and accident insurance and the so-called ‘mixed’ insurance which combines endowment insurance with accident disability. See Report on Social Security Programme in the Soviet Union, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Social Security Administration, Washington, D.C., 1960, pp. 107–11.Google Scholar Frederic L. Pryor in Public Expenditures in Communist and Capitalist Nations, London: Allen and Unwin, 1968, suggests that ‘sizeable proportions’ of the population in the USSR and Eastern Europe have voluntary insurance policies (p. 144). Data on private insurance in communist countries appear to be scarce.

⁶² Little information seems to be available on the number and activity of nonstatutory welfare organisations in the Soviet Union. But see Madison, , op. cit., ch. 6 passim and pp. 25, 188–90, 215.Google Scholar

⁶³ On poverty in the Soviet Union see Matthews, Mervyn, Class and Society in Soviet Russia, London: Allen Lane, Penguin, 1972, pp. 81–90,Google Scholar and on farmers–70. Using Soviet authorities' income standard for a modest level of living (non-farm families), Matthews estimates that about a third or more of such families could be said to be poor (p. 88). On Soviet income differences see ibid., pp. 90–7; Miller, Jack, Life in Russia Today, London: Batsford, 1969, pp. 108–9;Google ScholarYanowitch, Murray, ‘The Soviet Income Revolution’, Slavic Review, Vol. 22, No. 4, 12 1963, pp. 683–97;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWiles, P. J. D. and Markowski, Stefan, ‘Income Distribution Under Communism and Capitalism’, Soviet Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3, 01 1971, pp. 344–69 and No. 4, 12 1963, pp. 683–97;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWiles, P. J. D. and Markowski, Stefan, ‘Income Distribution Under Communism and Capitalism’, Soviet Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3, 01 1971, pp. 344–69 and No. 4, 04 1971, pp. 487–511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁴ Madison, , op. cit., p. 226;Google ScholarMiller, , op. cit., pp. 119–20.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Balinky, , op. cit., p. 21;Google ScholarBlock, A., ‘Soviet Housing: The Historical Aspect’, Soviet Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3, 01 1951, pp. 249, 251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁶ Gamarnikow, Michael, Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1968, pp. 65–72.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ See, for example, Madison, Bernice, ‘Soviet Income Maintenance Policy for the 1970’, Journal of Social Policy, Vol. 2, Pt. 2, 04 1973, p. 113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁸ Whereas consumption as a whole less than doubled, communal consumption (‘free educational, health and physical culture services’) rose more than five-fold. See Janet Chapman ‘Consumption’ in Bergson, and Kuznets, (eds.), op. cit., pp. 236–40.Google Scholar It should be noted that housing subsidy and transfer payments are not included in this computation of ‘communal consumption’.

⁶⁹ Excluding housing but including transfer payments, ibid., p. 264.

⁷⁰ In 1966–67, expenditure on health, education and income security amounted to 17.8% of the national product (Table 3 above). The value of housing subsidy is not known but in view of the extensive provision of state housing at a nominal rent, it is likely to be substantial. Thus the expenditure of social services including housing may well be over one-fifth of the national income.

⁷¹ Mary Garin-Painter, ‘Public Expenditure Trends’, Table 5, OECD, Economic Outlook, Occasional Studies (July, 1970), quoted in Sleeman, J. F., The Welfare State: Its Aims, Benefits and Costs, London: Allen and Unwin, 1973, p. 136.Google Scholar

⁷² See ‘Excerpts from the Party Program Adopted by the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’, and Naum Jasny, ‘Plan and Superplan’ in Shaffer, Harry G. (ed.), The Soviet Economy, London: Methuen, 1964, pp. 82, 85–6, 103.Google Scholar

⁷³ Wilczynski, J., Socialist Economic Development and Reforms, London: Macmillan, 1972, ch. 7 passim;CrossRefGoogle ScholarSchroeder, Gertrude E., ‘Consumer Problems and Prospects’, Problems of Communism, Vol. 22, No. 2, 03–04 1973, pp. 10, 14.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Wilczynski, , op. cit.,Google Scholar Jasny in Shaffer, (ed.), op. cit.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Wilczynski, , op. cit.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Schroeder, , op. cit., pp. 19, 21.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Ibid., p. 21. Indeed Soviet income security has made impressive strides in the late 1960s. For the scheduled family allowance programme see Madison, , ‘Soviet Income Maintenance Policy for the 1970s’, op. cit., pp. 106–7, 109–11.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ In Britain, the time-lag has been nearly a hundred years. In other West European countries it appears to have been shorter but five to six decades is probably not uncommon.

⁷⁹ Kerr, et al. , op. cit., pp. 40, 286, 290.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Ibid. Weber has some very similar things to say about the development of the state. See Weber, Max, ‘The Presuppositions and Causes of Bureaucracy’, Merton, R. K. et al. (eds.), Reader in Bureaucracy, New York: The Free Press, 1952, pp. 67–8.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Kerr, et al. , op. cit., pp. 288–96.Google Scholar

⁸² It could of course be argued that some pluralistic features, e.g., owner-occupied housing, mutual-aid (collective farmers), private medical care are present in Soviet welfare. But compared to Western countries, e.g., Britain, their scope appears to be far more limited and on present evidence they seem more in the nature of survivals from the past rather than pointers to the future. The main point is that so far there is no clearly discernible trend towards an expansion of pluralistic arrangements in welfare. Thus the case for some ‘similarity’ with the West in this respect can be argued but not the case for ‘convergence’, resulting from the logic of advancing industrialism.

⁸³ Rostow, , op. cit., is perhaps the best known contribution.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ The similarity with Britain is evident from Table 3 above. As regards Western countries generally, all provide free and compulsory education for the entire population. In several countries, e.g., Britain, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, medical care is also available to all residents while in many others, e.g., Belgium, Denmark, Japan, Luxembourg, upwards of 90% of the population is covered by public medical care schemes. The income security schemes in operation in the Soviet Union are to be found in the large majority of Western countries except that the USSR has no unemployment benefit and a far less developed system of public assistance. In 1963, eight Western countries spent more (as a proportion of national income) on state welfare (income security, health and education) than the USSR. On these points see Mishra, , op. cit.,Google Scholar I.L.O., The Cost of Social Security 1964–66, Geneva, 1972, and U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Social Security Programs Throughout the World 1967, Washington D.C., 1967.

⁸⁵ See, for example, Azrael, Jeremy R., ‘The Party and Society’, Kassof, Allen (ed.), Prospects for Soviet Society, London: Pall Mall, 1968, p. 73.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ See Johnson, Chalmers (ed.), Change in Communist Systems, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ See, for example, Wilczynski, , op. cit., pp. 110–2.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ In the course of industrial development, state welfare has expanded in all Western industrial countries. And although its scope varies from one country to another, state responsibility for meeting a range of basic needs, especially in respect of education, income security and medical care, could be said to have been institutionalized in_the large majority of these countries. (See Mishra, , op. cit.)Google Scholar As for industrially' advanced communist countries, e.g., East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland, there is little doubt about their broad similarity with the Soviet Union in respect of the prominent role of the state in welfare.

⁸⁹ It should be noted that here we are referring to convergence in respect of one feature of welfare, i.e., the level of state welfare, alone. As regards nonstatutory forms of welfare, there has been little or no convergence. Moreover, contemporary Soviet and British welfare systems show many similarities and dissimilarities in respect of patterns other than the two mentioned above. Our comparison, in terms of models, has been restricted to certain broad structural features of welfare. These limitations must be kept in mind.