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Working-Class Interests and the Politics of Social Democratic Reform in Britain, 1900–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

James E. Cronin
Affiliation:
Boston College
Peter Weiler
Affiliation:
Boston College

Extract

When nineteenth-century liberals searched for reasons not to enfranchise the lower orders, they most often hit upon the argument that, once given the vote, workers would use it to elect governments pledged to redistribution and welfare at the expense of property. A cursory look at the political history of the twentieth century suggests they were not entirely deluded. Indeed, the most salient facts about political development since 1900 surely are related: The democratization of the political system allowed for the emergence of the working class as a distinct claimant to political power, and its presence within the polity somehow or another stimulated the enormous extension of the social and economic role of the state.

Type
The Working Class and the Welfare State
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1991

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References

NOTES

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35. The Treasury and the Bank of England closely coordinated their testimony throughout the deliberations of the Macmillan committee. See, for example, Harvey to Leith-Ross, March 20, 1931, in T188/275.

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50. With some justice, Geoffrey Foote has labelled this evolving program “corporate socialism”. See Foote, , The Labour Party's Political Thought: A History (London, 1985), 149–88.Google Scholar

51. “Labour's Home Policy”, 95–99.

52. Labour's specific contribution to the postwar settlement was thus considerably more important than some recent writings would suggest. See, for example, Stedman, Gareth Jones's description of the reforms of the postwar Labour government as “the last and most glorious flowering of late Victorian Liberal philanthropy”, in Languages of Class: Studies in English Working-Class History (Cambridge, 1984), 246.Google Scholar

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54. On the relatively smooth translation of program into policy after 1945, see Morgan, Kenneth, Labour in Power, 1945–1951 (Oxford, 1984).Google Scholar For some of the contention, see Schneer, Jonathan, Labour's Conscience: The Labour Left, 1945–1951 (London, 1988).Google Scholar