Australian Left Review

Article Title

A Welfare Experience

Authors

Peter Saunders

Abstract

For two decades now, in most of the industrialised world, a debate over the welfare state has been at the heart of the broader attack on the role of the state. Those countries, including Australia, in which that attack has been conducted most vigorously have tended to be those with less expansive welfare provision. They are also countries where concepts of citizenship, solidarity and equality—each of which challenge the assumptions and consequences of market competition—have tended not to be embraced with enthusiasm, nor received broad community endorsement.