Anomie and Equality in the Welfare State

Dec 21 2000

1. Approach to the topic

Latest since Esping-Andersen’s typology of the three worlds of welfare capitalism it is clear that there are large differences in the welfare policy between the different states called “welfare states”. If comparing the three models of welfare states (Esping-Andersen 1990), it has to be considered that providing equality has only been the goal of the social democratic regimes who tried to reduce stratification and have a high level of decommodification. Neither the conservative model, which is based on a system of insurances, nor the liberal model, which has a very low level of decommodification while having only low influence on the stratification generated by the market, had the intention to generate a general equality in the society. For that reason also the changes in equality caused by a changing welfare policy can’t be discussed in general but only for a certain type of welfare states. In this essay, I will have a look at the social democratic model as Esping-Andersen described it, that means: the system as it exists in the northern European countries.

When discussing about changes in the welfare policy, the two controversial aspects that have to be considered are the economical needs versus the attempt to construct a peaceful and orderly society (Pentti 1998). The globalization process, leading to a more rational policy, brings along problems when the rationalization causes a decrease of welfare. In this process, besides the practical problems of a lower level in health care, unemployment insurance and social security for old people, one of the biggest problems for the society is the growing inequality caused by the decreasing services.

Welfare provision is much more than only the redistribution of incomes to guarantee health and social security, it also has to be seen as an instrument for the production of an equality structure in a society:

“[...] [W]elfare eliminates the essential causes of class struggle, incorporates the working classes, and democratises popular access to the state [...] [and] transforms class conflict into status competition” (Esping-Andersen 1990, p.55).

Status competition is much more equal than class conflicts, since the people themselves have the influence on their success. To express it in an idealistic way, everybody has the same starting conditions and is personally responsible what he makes out of it (a free competition about reaching a higher status) while in a class society people don’t have equal chances and equal access to the resources. In a social democratic regime class conflicts will of course always remain in some way, if imaginating the situation of total absence of class structures we would have a socialist conception (even though in socialistic regimes also status competition is not desired). So, if talking of equal chances for everybody this is in some way idealistic – but at this point of the discussion that can be ignored.

Starting from that argumentation, the conclusion has to be that lowering the level of the provided welfare – which might be desirable for economical reasons (lowering the tax level in order to lower the costs of work) or for political reasons (reduction of state control, as it was practiced in times of Thatcherism in Great Britain) means a loss of control over the class structure, a loss of democracy and in consequence (at least in parts) a return from status competition to class conflicts.

The hypothesis I want to discuss in this essay is, that the welfare system has been reducing the negative consequences of anomie but has not been a final solution for the anomie problem itself.

2. Anomie and inequality in highly differentiated societies (Emile Durkheim)

In this chapter I want to lay a sociological foundation of my hypothesis about the relation between welfare and equality and the present problems of the welfare state. Durkheim’s term of “anomie” gives a evident model to describe why welfare policy (as an authoritarian regulation of society) is reducing inequality in societies with a high differentiation:

When talking about anomie as “a lack of normative or moral regulation” (Flora et.al. 1981, p.24) in the context of inequality, the welfare state and its policy is seen as a regulating authority, trying to take countermeasures against the growing stratification of the society – In a social democratic regime class conflicts will of course always remain in some way, if imaginating the situation of total absence of class structures we would have a socialist conception (even though in socialistic regimes also status competition is not desired). So, if talking of equal chances for everybody this is in some way idealistic – but at this point of the discussion that can be ignored.

The status of anomie, growing under the influence of the system of capitalism, leads to an imbalance between the needs and wants of the individuals and the real situation in the society. Class structures grow up and are reinforced, the higher classes don’t see a need for any changes because they are the “winners” of the development but the lower groups who are unsatisfied don’t have the influence to establish normative rules that would protect their rights.

To continue this “Durkheimian” train of thought, the establishment of the welfare system might appear as solution for the problem of anomie. It sets up a structure of normative and moral regulation (the two elements that were the reason for anomie in the definition above) and should in this way reduce the growth of class division and establish equality in the society:

(Figure 1: by the author).

3. Equality in the conception of the welfare state

To say it in words of Daniel Defoe, “[e]qualizing conditions of life [...] becomes a means of changing human relationships, of creating a better social climate” (Furniss/Tilton 1979, p.31). I want to use this citation for my approach to the roots of the idea of equality in the conception of welfare policy.

I first want to briefly discuss why equality is an element of welfare policy, what kind of equality is included and what are the effects of its presence.

3.1. The goals of equality in the welfare state

The main goals of welfare policy to the society are increasing economical productivity, decrease of class differences, stabilization of individual living environment and legitimation of the relation between state and society. (Schulte 1998, [WWW document].) So, the equality is not only provided for the interests of the individuals, but also for national reasons – in order to provide a good basis for a growing economy and a nation-wide political stability.

In a state, where the people have the feeling of being equal to each other, the risk of radical civic movements is remarkable reduced. This assures a peaceful atmosphere, what will have a positive influence on the people’s productivity and in that way to the economical health of the state (of course, it was not really like that – I will come back to this point later).

3.2. The dimensions of equality

Following a statement of Ernst Wigfors, a former theorist of the Swedish social democrats, the democratic principle of equality does not only mean equality concerning the access to non-material and material resources of the society, but also in power and influence. (Menningen 1971, p.13.) That means, people should not only be recipients of welfare but also should have equal chances to actively participate in state and society.

“Equality embraces numerous specific considerations like the right to education, equality before the law, equality of personal respect, equality of political and economic influence.” (Furniss/Tilton 1979, p.29.)

In conclusion: when we are talking about equality in the welfare state, this means much more than only the redistribution of incomes and the equal access to the institutions of welfare provision – a equal society has to have equality in all fields of social life and social relations.

But how was this in practice? Was the Nordic welfare state really providing more equality than social security? A report presented by Alva Myrdal to the Swedish congress in 1969 later became the official policy of the social democratic party in Sweden and thus – is a important document to research the conceptions of the welfare policy. As Gunnar Heckscher states in his discussion of the Alva Myrdal report on the welfare state,

“Equality must be [...] asserted everywhere – in every assembly of persons, in every school, in all places of work, in all organizations, in every home.” (Heckscher 1984, pp. 230-231)

Based on these facts, I would dare to state that the concept of equality was one of the central aims of the welfare policy.

3.3. The effects of equality

Altogether the effects of the welfare system can be seen as compensation of negative consequences of modernization, while protecting the structural independence of the social subsystems. (Luhmann 1990.) Here I can close the circle to Daniel Defoe’s sentence: The very competitive social climate of a industrialized world is compensated by a provision of a basic and general equality to the people, in human relations the pressure of competition is in that way reduced, though it is not eliminated as in the socialistic conception. But – and that’s what the independence of the social subsystems is about – personal differences are not eliminated and the state’s regulative influence is not so strong that it controls all kinds of equality and inequality in the state. The society is still in a self-regulating status, the social subsystems can interact independently, what is an important aspect in order to protect the society from a state-dictated equality, a conception that is not working, as we were able to see in the breakdown of the socialistic states in the late 1980s.

4. Problems of the welfare state today

Western models of welfare state were created during a period of fast growing population in industrialized nation states with the working class representing the dominating class. Today, demographic growth is zero or negative, the supranational tertiary sector dominates the economy and the main class in society is the middle class – If there are any “classes” at all – the term of social class can be discussed. (Ponzini 1997 [WWW document].) So, the regional and international changes leaded to a situation where the Nordic welfare states had to bring their policy into line with the (lower) international standards – on the one hand because of saving money, on the other to protect the national economy from the heavy concurrence of regions and countries with lower costs for work power:

Due to the decreasing independence of national markets, competition becomes worldwide in times of globalization and the supranational tertiary sector dominates the international and national economy. Production costs have to be lowered to stand the competition of countries with a lower level of welfare – and welfare costs.

“Countries no longer find it so easy to hide behind protective barriers and so are less able to support levels of benefits for their work forces that are superior to those in competing countries.” (Camdessus 1998 [WWW document].)

This means that globalization makes it difficult for countries to keep higher tax levels than the countries that are their competitors. In consequence, a reduction of tax levels always has to be financed by a decrease in some areas of social welfare.

If tax rates have to be lowered and, in consequence, the welfare provision has to be reduced, the system of individual coverage is changing from public to private. Liberalization, deregulation, privatisation, subsidiarity – all these topics, nowadays heavily discussed, stand for a reduction of public welfare, forcing the citizens to care for their social coverage on the private market. (Schulte 1998, [WWW document].)

So, the present challenges for the welfare system can be summed up in brief as follows: (a) as internal challenges: a changing demography, the “jobless growth” of economy, the decreasing social production of welfare in the institution of the family, and the decreasing role of the concept of national politics and (b) as a external challenge: social policy has today to be seen as an international affair. (Schulte 1998, [WWW document].)

5. Consequences of the decrease of welfare provision

As seen in the chapter above, the northern welfare society is in a process of decreasing influence of the state on the welfare provision. I now want to come back to Durkheim, where I started my discussion by talking about the “solution” of the anomie problem by the welfare system. If the welfare provision is now reduced, what does it mean for the equality in the society and what are the practical consequences of these changes for the society?

5.1. The latent presence of anomie

To express it in a Durkheimian view, it could be said that the society at that point returns to the status of anomie. The state draws back its normative influence on the distribution of welfare, capitalistic thinking dominates the social reality, the northern welfare policy’s idea of equality is not any more real, because it’s not any more affordable.

(Figure 2: by the author)

But has the welfare society ever had left the status of anomie? On the first view, welfare provision introduces in a way a high level of equality to the system of Nordic welfare states. But in a deeper theoretical view – still in tradition of Durkheim – the western welfare states primarily respond to material needs instead of shaping and defining the sources of these needs.

The reasons for an upcoming inequality are, in this view, that the problem of Anomie is not solved by the welfare state, but only economic equality is provided; the solution would be a development from social security to a security of social status. (Flora et.al. 1981, pp.24-25.) But to stay on the level of actual equality, it can in summary be said, that the welfare provision reduces the negative effects of anomie, even though it is still present in the background, since its sources are not solved. At this point, I won’t continue to discuss the sources of anomie, because for the topic of the essay the equality that can in fact be seen in the society is more interesting – and this means nowadays mainly economical equality. The latent presence of “feelings of inequality”, caused by the unsolved anomie, is still an interesting aspect and might also have an influence on the present problems of the welfare regimes that I will discuss later on.

As Peter Flora states that “[f]or Durkheim, the answer to the problem of anomie was normative regulation” (Flora et.al. 1981, p.24) it now becomes clear that the welfare state has not really been a system of normative regulation of the society but more or less only a system of balancing out inequalities by redistributing incomes:

“Thus the welfare state would here represent an answer not to the more general problem of anomie in modern societies, but rather to the limited problem of economic insecurity.” (Flora et.al. 1981, p.24)

As discussed in chapter 3, the welfare system has in my eyes not only provided economic security for the individual but also offered equal access to and participation in politics, education and chances. Anyway, all this equality has only been temporary – financed and regulated by the state. The problem of anomie has in fact never been solved by the conception of the welfare state.

5.2. The return to a class society

Even though the combination of public welfare on the one side and private insurance on the other offers a freedom of choice for the individual, those who are disadvantaged in the traditional capitalist welfare states (namely: part time employees, mothers, unemployed people, disabled and groups with low incomes) and who don’t have the money for private protection receive less welfare than the middle class; the groups with high income can afford all required assurances and become in that way a “upper class”. (Schulte 1998, [WWW document].)

This makes clear what are the risks of a decrease in public welfare provision: Instead of an appropriate distribution of income, which was the basic concept of the Nordic welfare state, a system that is in growing parts based on private coverage lets the society return to a former status of class society, where the rich people can afford their assurances themselves and the groups with low incomes don’t receive more than a very basic public service.

I already mentioned what is so abnormal about the described class structure while describing the term of “anomie” in chapter 2: The people’s needs and their wants differ widely. Also the upper class would need a equal society and a good public coverage – at least to preserve peace in the society – but the rational thinking doesn’t allow them to see the benefits of these equalities. In last consequence, the needs and wants of the low class are far away from what they get.

6. Conclusions

So what did I find out during my discussion in this essay? First of all (this can be seen as a conclusion of chapter 3), equality definitely was one of the main ideas of the welfare policy in the so called so called northern social democratic regime. Being based on income redistribution – realized by high taxes – old class structures were watered down and most inequalities were not any more present.

But – and that is the main idea for using Durkheim’s term of “anomie” for this analysis – the root of the problem was not tackled, the inequalities were not basically solved by the welfare state: only the symptoms of the inequal structures were treated, but not the cause of the inequality. It has to be said that the Nordic system of a equal welfare society – that has without any doubt been very effective in practice while it was possible to fund its enormous costs – has not really been a permanent solution for the presence of inequality structures in the society. In this context, the question is: has a permanent solution at all been the goal of this welfare policy? It would be a topic for an own essay and for that reason I will not even start to dscuss it here – for the question of my discussion this is anyway not so important.

This turns out today, when the level of public welfare provision has to be cut down for the various reasons discussed in chapter 4 and in consequence the normative influence of the state is reduced. The society returns to anomie, caused by capitalistic competition and the state’s role as lawyer of the underprivileged is not any more affordable – in the society slightly grows a lack of normative or moral regulation, which was Peter Flora’s definition of anomie, that I used in the 2nd chapter.

While researching the wide field of literature, I even discovered a second, more general aspect why equality in general seems not to be a solution for the problem of anomie. For sure, some kind of regulation is needed to leave the status of anomie behind, but is a regulation towards equality really the right way?

“[...] collective consumption always involves uniformity, and uniformity almost by definition involves regimentation and restriction of individual liberties.” (Heckscher 1984, pp.240-241)

In the beginning, we defined anomie as the lack of normative regulation, that made the winners of the modernization ignoring the needs of the lower levels of society. Now, under the strong equalizing influence of a welfare policy, the incomes of the rich are heavily cut and the poor have profit of their work. I would even go so far to say that the egalitarian policy of the welfare state has turned the society to another extreme: too much normative regulation, a moral influence that was equalizing so strong that it was already in a way “unmorally”.

The concept of the welfare state concerning the aspect of reducing equality was to limit the liberty of the higher levels of the societies to increase the amount of liberty for the lower levels who felt themselves as cut in their freedom because of the consequences of the modernization. But as the high level of income redistribution gave the lower levels the same liberty as the high levels, the latter felt cut too much in their own freedom.

To support this point of view, I want to mention the growing support for conservative parties in the early 1980′s, that can be seen as a protest against the “unfair equalization” in the society.

To come down on what this has to do with anomie: In my eyes this line of argumentation is another argument for the fact that behind the welfare system there was always a latently present anomie, the normative regulation of equality seems not to have been the right approach for solving the problem.

From my intention it can’t be the role of this essay to discuss the possible solutions for the presented problem. Anyway I want to drop some final lines on my personal prospects for the future of welfare and equality:

The chances for a re-establishment of a normative system that provides equality for the people are not very good. Even though the Nordic welfare system of redistribution of income and the equal access to resources has been working quite well, it seems not very realistic that a system like that could be introduced globally. It does not even seem likely that the European countries can agree on a common social security program and harmonized tax levels – and also this system would again have the same problems that the states with a very “liberal” welfare history (to use Esping-Andersen’s typology once more), who are nowadays direct competitors also on local markets, would offer much cheaper production conditions.

Bibliography:

Tweet this Share on Facebook Send by e-mail More bookmarking/sharing

Comments for this entry are closed. Of course I'm still happy to hear your opinion. You might consider to send me an e-mail instead?