| Popis: |
Thesis: As the State evolves from a nation-state to a post-modern state, the nature of welfare will change. The regime of law and entitlements that was the uncontested hallmark of the nation-state will evolve into a regime of incentives. The State will deliver on the promise of welfare by providing economic opportunity for its citizens. Together with law, welfare is one of the two dimensions of the inner face of the State. As we have explained previously, we conceive of “welfare” as more than just entitlements. In achieving legitimacy, the State provides for its people not only in matters of entitlements and social protection, but through legal regimes and regulations. One of the principal justifications for the State is that it delivers order to an otherwise Hobbesian universe. The regulation and facilitation of commercial transactions, for example, is just one of the many ways in which the State's legal regime contributes to the betterment of its subjects. In the modern era, it was uncontested that welfare (in the broad sense that we give to the term) was a pillar of the State. The entitlements system of the modern nation-state, however, is giving way to an incentives-driven framework where government, instead of guaranteeing a set of entitlements to its citizens, will seek to maximize their opportunity to achieve economic security and well-being on their own. Welfare has not withered away, but it no longer occupies the central role that it had in the modern era. |
