Memorandum on social insurance and allied services in their bearing on neurotic disorder
1943 1943 1940s 19 pages 5 may provide income security ; it is an attack upon Want. But Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction and in some ways the easiest to attack. The others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness" (para. 8). (3) "Social security mus...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
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[1943?]
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/BE220AA4-0B09-4AD5-AF56-04CEB63EF1CC http://hdl.handle.net/10796/F266F968-56F1-4815-86D0-D682C0A83F52 |
| Summary: | 1943
1943
1940s
19 pages
5 may provide income security ; it is an attack upon Want. But Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction and in some ways the easiest to attack. The others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness" (para. 8). (3) "Social security must be achieved by co-operation between the State and the individual. The State should offer security for service and contribution. The State in organizing security should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility ; in establishing a national minimum, it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family" (para. 9). Study of the report indicates that this is not a full statement of the guiding principles, though there need be no quarrel with the validity of those laid down. The second principle is the main one ; it is necessary to consider what are its implications, and whether the other principles were ever allowed to override it ; also whether the proposals are likely to run counter to other important social forces, and consider what are the important psychological points to be heeded in a "comprehensive policy for social progress," such as is embodied in these proposals. (a) Security or Freedom from Want : the Main Aim of the Scheme. The scheme provides income security, "based on a diagnosis of want." Therefore in so far as the diagnosis is correct and money can provide our necessities, it should achieve its aim. Benefits should be not merely enough for average needs, but adjusted to the main individual variations of these needs. Recourse to the "assistance" procedure should be a rarity — but obviously every contingency cannot be covered in a general insurance scheme ; whether security from all wants can be covered by income security is also discussed later in this section. Regarded from a psychological point of view, in its effect on those likely to receive benefit, a more positive aim than the "abolition of want" is essential. Such a formulation might run : "The restoration and maintenance of full social efficiency in those disabled, handicapped or without means of livelihood ; part 1 — Income Insurance." This would also make it more obviously part of a larger scheme, which it must be, to be efficient. The basic principles for a scheme of social security were stated fifty years ago in a famous document : "Justice demands that the interests of those who work should be carefully watched over by the administration, so that they who contribute so largely to the advantage of the community may themselves share in the benefits which they create — that of being housed, clothed and bodily fit, and that they may find life less hard and more endurable. ... There is no fear that solicitude of this kind will be harmful to any interest, it will be to the advantage of all ; for it cannot but be good for the commonwealth to shield from misery those on whom it so largely depends for the things that it needs."
292/847/2/174 |
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |