The Moral Economy of Welfare States: Britain and Germany Compared

by Steffen Mau

Overview

This book investigates why people are willing to support an institutional arrangement that realises large-scale redistribution of wealth between social groups of society. Steffen Mau introduces the concept of 'the moral economy' to show that acceptance of welfare exchanges rests on moral assumptions and ideas of social justice people adhere to. Analysing both the institution of welfare and the public attitudes towards such schemes, the book demonstrates that people are neither selfish nor altruistic; rather they tend to reason reciprocally.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415317542
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/21/2003
Series:	Routledge Studies in the Political Economy of the Welfare State , #5
Edition description:	Published ed.
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1490L (what's this?)

About the Author

Junior professor in the Graduate School of Social Sciences (GSSS), University of Bremen, Germany.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Self-interest and pocket-book attitudes; Chapter 3 The admixture of motives; Chapter 4 An analytical framework; Chapter 5 The state of welfare; Chapter 6 The logic of popular support for welfare schemes and their objectives; Chapter 7 The moral economy revisited;

Editorial Reviews

'The review is persuasive on both empirical and theoretical grounds and achieves its aims of adding substance to literature on attitude surveys which so often raise questions rather than provide answers ... This is no mean achievement.'

Social Policy Issue 3, 2004.

From the Publisher