Democracy and Social Rights in the "Two Wests"

nova americana in english Some sixty years ago, the British social scientist, Thomas H. Marshall articulated what has since Ed. Kessler-Harris, Vaudagna become the paradigmatic conceptual framework for describing the relationship between social rights and citizenship. Until the twentieth century, Marshall thought, the expansion of citizenship rested on the achievement of political and civil rights. But in the twentieth century, the progress of citizenship began to depend on the diminution of inequality. This end, he believed, would be achieved by “incorporating social rights in the status of citizenship and thus creating a universal right to real income.” In the course of the century, Western industrial countries have struggled to expand the meaning of real income and to re-distribute it more equally. Education, health care, access to employment, pensions, food, shelter, child and elderly care are counted among the resources citizens expect as a matter of edited by Alice Kessler-Harris and entitlement. These goods have, as Marshall put it, modified “the whole pattern of social inequality.” The new social edifice, he thought, would accommodate far more voices and, ultimately, a more Maurizio Vaudagna inclusionary polity. Marshall’s expectations have been only partially fulfilled. Over the course of the century, social rights have been extended in ways that have equalized material resources among individuals. Yet they have Wests” “Two in the Democracy and Social Rights not necessarily led to enhanced social citizenship. In many places, the poor and minority groups have no greater voice in the polity than in the past. The relationship of social rights to democracy now appears to be far less certain than it did in Marshall’s day. Democracy and Social Rights The essays in this volume help us to understand how in many European countries the extension of social rights acted as a counterweight to the worst predations of capitalism. In the United States the in the “Two Wests” battle has been harder fought and social rights have been provided in such a way that they have yielded little voice for ordinary folk. The advent of neo-liberalism in the 1980s seemed to suggest that the limit had been reached in both America and Western Europe. And yet, the current disarray of neo-liberalism is far from reassuring. As nationality, and ethnic origin become criteria for the distribution of rights, and global streams of migration continue unabated, questions about who is entitled to the perquisites of citizenship pervade political discourse and the rights that accrue to citizens seem to narrow visibly. The war that Marshall declared goes on. It has simply taken another form. Volker Berghahn Robin Blackburn Simone Cinotto Michael Freeden Alice Kessler-Harris is R. Gordon Hoxie Professor of American History at Columbia University in New Chiara Giorgi Marcus Gräser York and Professor in the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. She has specialized in the Gro Hagemann Alice Kessler-Harris history of American labor and the comparative and interdisciplinary exploration of women and gender. Ruth Lister Wilfried Loth Maurizio Vaudagna is professor of Contemporary History at the University of Eastern Piedmont in Italy Marco Mariano Axel R. Schäfer and director of CISPEA, the consortium of Americanist scholars from the universities of Bologna, Bo Stråth Danielle Tartakowsky Florence, Triest and Eastern Piedmont. He is a specialist in twentieth-century American political and Pat Thane Béla Tomka social history. Maurizio Vaudagna Books in the “Nova Americana” and “Nova Americana in English” series also appear in electronic format and can be found at the website www.otto.to.it. ISBN 978-88-95285-16-0 € XX.00 nova americana in english Democracy and Social Rights in the “Two Wests” edited by Alice Kessler-Harris and Maurizio Vaudagna Democracy and Social Rights in the “Two Wests” edited by Alice Kessler-Harris and Maurizio Vaudagna Collana Nova Americana in English Comitato scientifico: Marco Bellingeri, Marcello Carmagnani, Maurizio Vaudagna Prima edizione dicembre 2009 ©2009, OTTO editore – Torino [email protected] http://www.otto.to.it ISBN 978-88-95285-17-7 È vietata la riproduzione, anche parziale, con qualsiasi mezzo effettuato, compresa la fotocopia, anche ad uso interno o didattico, non autorizzato. Table of Contents Alice Kessler-Harris and Maurizio Vaudagna Preface 1 Alice Kessler-Harris Democracy, Liberty and Social Rights: An Introduction 3 Maurizio Vaudagna Social Rights and Changing Definitions of Liberty: America, Europe and the Dictators 19 Issues and Themes Ruth Lister Poor Citizenship: Social Rights, Poverty and Democracy in the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Centuries 43 Volker R. Berghahn American Social Scientists and the European-American Dialogue on Social Rights, 1930-1970 67 Pat Thane Women, Democracy and Social Rights in the Twentieth Century 91 Michael Freeden Democracy and Paternalism: The Struggle Over Shaping British Liberal Welfare Thinking 107 i Table of Contents Marco Mariano The Liberal Dilemma. Social Rights, Civil Rights, and the Cold War in “Vital Center” Liberalism 123 Wilfried Loth Social Rights and Democracy in European Catholic Thought 143 Robin Blackburn Pension Rights and Pension Finance in the Ageing Society 157 naTIonal Cases Marcus Gräser The German Welfare State and Its Transformation, 1900-1945 183 Bo Stråth Social Rights and the Social State in Democratic Countries during the Interwar Years: The Case of Sweden 201 Gro Hagemann The Value of Domestic Work: Economic Citizenship in Early Postwar Norway and Sweden 219 Danielle Tartakowsky In the Name of Liberty: Foreign Influence on the French Popular Front 243 Axel R. Schäfer The Liberal State and Conservative Social Policy: The Politics of Growth, Subsidiarity, and Moral Categorizing in the United States after 1945 259 Simone Cinotto Italian Americans and Public Housing in New York, 1937-1941: Cultural Pluralism, Ethnic Maternalism, and the Welfare State 279 Béla Tomka Social Security in Postwar East Central Europe 307 Chiara Giorgi The Origins and Development of the Welfare State: Democracies and Totalitarianisms Compared 329 Biographical Sketches 347 ii Preface “All history is contemporary history” famously said Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce as he hinted at the present concerns and dreams that guide historians in focussing their scholarly interests and selecting subjects of research. The history of social rights aptly responds to Croce’s maxim. Different from earlier decades when the subject was mainly treated by sociologists and political scientists, historians have entered the field in the last twenty-five years. They have given much more attention to the twentieth-century development of what is alternately called social provision, the welfare state, the social service state, or the social rights of citizenship. An abundant crop of new books has appeared in the historical literature, many of them written from a comparative or international perspective. Two trends best explain the new historical focus. On the one hand the blooming of women’s history has generated interest in previously marginalized subjects such as the perpetuation of family and community; the meaning of household work; the nature of paid and unpaid “caring” duties; and the provision of services for the poor, the elderly, children and the sick. Women’s historians have also fostered a debate over the role of the state in relationship to these social issues. On the other hand the so called “crisis of the welfare state” that emerged in the late seventies, has led historians to take a new look at the political and economic sources of modern social rights. While, in different degrees, these had been seen as givens for most Western industrial countries in the post-World- War-II years, they are increasingly in jeopardy. To find out why, social scientists, including historians, have turned to the past, looking for the development of a sometimes contradictory, but definitely relevant, achievement of the otherwise troubled twentieth century. Their search should lead to proposals for how best to rethink the place and the nature of social rights in the context of new demands for democratic participation. This book takes its place in that literature. Institutionally this book is born out of the cooperation between the Department of History of Columbia University and CISPEA, the consortium of Italian Americanist historians at the Universities of Bologna, Florence, Triest and Eastern Piedmont. 1 Democracy and Social Rights in the “Two Wests” The papers presented here are the products of a conference held in Vercelli and Torino in the spring of 2008. That conference was the third in a series on the history of social rights held in New York and Italy in 2006 and dealing first with the transatlantic welfare states between democracy and totalitarianism and then with the history and the future of social justice. We are grateful to the sponsors and contributors that have supported our conferences: at Columbia University we thank the Office of the Provost, the Department of History, the Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History and the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America; in Italy, in addition to CISPEA, the University of Eastern Piedmont and its Department of Human Studies, and the “Piero Bairati” Center for American and European-American Studies. We are equally grateful to colleagues from many transatlantic countries for the wide range of issues and nations that their essays have covered. The large scholarly ter- rain considered in this book responds to the civic concern that is so visible in this area of historical studies. At the same time we intend this publication as an intermediate step. We hope that our joint efforts will continue to produce an enriching exchange of ideas and continuing scholarly work. We dedicate this book to new cooperative efforts. Alice Kessler-Harris and Maurizio Vaudagna 2 Democracy, Liberty and Social Rights: An Introduction Alice Kessler-Harris Some sixty years ago, the British social scientist, T.

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