The Big Idea

Why do most people—in the real world and in academia-- support the welfare state? Because they believe it’s fairer, better for the poor, provides a stronger sense of community than market-based alternatives. My view: the very values that are used to support the welfare state actually provide support for the alternatives!

What’s cool about this book?

No one else has done all of the following:


• Argued that supporters of the welfare state should, using their own principles, actually oppose it and favor more market based or libertarian institutional alternatives.
• Integrated a large body of social science literature into philosophical arguments for and against the welfare state.
• Engaged in comparative institutional analysis: comparing how real welfare state institutions work with realistic market based alternatives.
• Has avoided the usual Anglo-Centric bias by doing the above comparison using data from a wide variety of affluent democracies.

I wrote this book with the thought that the divisions between different perspectives in political philosophy are less than we think. Although we disagree on basic principles, maybe if we understood the facts and how alternative institutions operate, we would find common ground on institutional questions. This is a message of hope. Despite seeming intractable disagreements in political philosophy, in another sense (i.e., having to do with the institutions that should be in place), we agree on a great deal more than we realize.