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COVID-19 has transformed the British welfare state. The government has created millions of new beneficiaries, spent tens of billions of pounds it doesn’t have and created a mountain of public debt. And yet, when the crisis has passed, we will be left with all the old problems of welfare and well-being which we have systematically failed to address over the past 50 years.
In this book, Christopher Pierson argues that we need to think quite differently about how we can ensure our collective well-being in the future. To do this, he looks backwards to the welfare state’s origins and development as well as forwards, unearthing some surprising solutions in unexpected places.
Christopher Pierson is Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Nottingham. In a career spanning four decades, he has held visiting posts at the University of California, Johns Hopkins University, the Australian National University, the University of Auckland and the Hansewissenshaftskolleg.
He has two main research interests: the contemporary welfare state and the history of private property. He is editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State (2010, 2021) and sole author of three editions of Beyond the Welfare State? (2006) and of three volumes of Just Property (2013, 2016, 2020).
Introduction
1. Welfare in an age of austerity
2. The last social democratic welfare state
3. Back to the future, again
4. Future imperfect
5. COVID-19 and after
Conclusion