Search -
Creating the Welfare State: The Political Economy of Twentieth-Century Reform: Revised Edition
Creating the Welfare State The Political Economy of TwentiethCentury Reform Revised Edition Author:Edward D. Berkowitz, Kim McQuaid The business community has been the Number One Enemy of welfare programs, according to most historians. History credits liberals and bureaucrats with bravely forging our social welfare system in the face of pressure and strident protest from businessmen. That's bunk, say Edward Berkowitz and Kim McQuaid. Instead of resisting social programs, bu... more »sinessmen initiated them. In Creating the Welfare State, Berkowitz and McQuaid show how private businessmen played leading roles in shaping the nation's social security, welfare, and health care programs. They demonstrate how progressive businessmen like Edward A. Filene and Gerard Swope worked with their opposite numbers in the federal government, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Arthur Altmeyer, to fashion a social welfare system tailored to an industrialized work force. Creating the Welfare State combines the perspectives of two disciplines: policy history and business history. The resulting synthesis suggests a new way to view the progressive era, the new era, and the New Deal. The new preface and afterword add a current focus to this revised edition, and help a new generation of readers place the debates over national health insurance and social security financing into historical perspective.« less