William Beveridge Early Life And Career Main Work On Social

Beveridge became interested in the social services and wrote about the subject for the Morning Post .

In 1908, now considered to be the United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a state in Western Europe, usually known simply as the United Kingdom the UK Britain or less accurately as Great Britain . The UK was formed by a series of Acts of Union which united the formerly's leading authority on unemployment insurance, he joined the Board of TradeThe President of the Board of Trade the title of a cabinet position in the United Kingdom government. It is the secondary title of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry . The idea of a Board of Trade was first translated into action by Oliver Crom, and helped organize the implementation of the national system of labour exchange s.

In 1909 Beveridge was appointed Director of Labour Exchanges; his ideas influenced David Lloyd GeorgeDavid Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor OM ( January 17, 1863 March 26, 1945) was a British statesman and the last Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Upbringing Although born in Manchester in 1863, David Lloyd George was a Welsh-spe and led to the passing of the 1911 National Insurance Act . During AsquithThe name Herbert Asquith normally refers to: Herbert Henry Asquith, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom ( 1908 1916), but may also refer to his son: Herbert Asquith, a poet.'s Liberal government of 1908 to 1914 Beveridge was asked to advise Lloyd George on Old Age PensionA pension (also known as superannuation is a retirement plan intended to provide a person with a secure income for life. Although a lottery may provide a pension, the common use of the term is to describe the payments a person receives upon retirement.s and National Insurance; the government began to take action to combat poverty.

During World War IWorld War I (also known as the First World War , the Great War the War of the Nations and the "War to End All Wars") was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to 1918. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers, or involved so many in the field of ( 1914Events January 4 77 seal hunters freeze to death on ice near Labrador January 5 Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor February 13 Copyright: In New York City the ASCAP (for American Society of Compos- 1918Events January January 8 President Woodrow Wilson announces his " Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I. February February 3 The Twin Peaks Tunnel begins service in San Francisco as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world (11,920 feet long).) Beveridge was involved in mobilising and controlling manpower. After the war, he was knighted and made permanent secretary to the Ministry of Food.

In 1919 he left the civil service to become director of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Over the next few years he served on several commissions and committees on social policy.

Lord Beveridge was so highly influenced by the Fabian Society socialists - in particular by Beatrice Potter Webb, with whom he worked on the 1909 Poor Laws report - that he could readily be considered one of their number. However, he was perhaps the best economist among them - his early work on unemployment (1909) and his massive historical study of prices and wages (1939) being clear testaments of his scholarship. The Fabians made him a director of the LSE in 1919, a post he retained until 1937. His continual jousts with Cannan and Robbins, who were trying to wrench the LSE away from its Fabian roots, are now legendary.

2 Main work on social security

Three years later, Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour, asked him to look into existing schemes of social security, which had grown up haphazardly, and make recommendations. In 1941, the government ordered a report on how Britain should be rebuilt after World War II; Beveridge was an obvious choice to take charge.

The Report to the Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in 1942. It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge argued that this system would provide a minimum standard of living "below which no one should be allowed to fall".

Recommended that the government should find ways of fighting the five 'Giant Evils' of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. This led to the setting up of the modern Welfare State (the culmination of the Fabians' project) with a National Health Service (NHS):

19.Plan for social security : XI.Medical treatment covering all requirements will be provided for all citizens by a National Health Service organised under the health departments and post-medical rehabilitation treatment will be provided for all persons capable of profiting by it.

One of its most remarkable assets was the convincing manner of Beveridge's argument which made it so widely acceptable: Beveridge appealed to conservatives and other doubters by arguing that the welfare institutions he proposed would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions out of corporate ledgers and onto the public account, but also by producing healthier, wealthier and thus more motivated and productive workers who would also serve as a great source of demand for British goods.

Beveridge saw full employment (which he defined as unemployment of no more than 3%) as the pivot of the social welfare programme he expressed in the 1942 Beveridge Report, and Full Employment in a Free Society (1944) expressed how this goal might be gained. Alternative measures for achieving it included Keynesian-style fiscal regulation, direct control of manpower, and state control of the means of production. The impetus behind Beveridge's thinking was social justice, and the creation of an ideal new society after the war. He believed that the discovery of objective socio-economic laws could solve the problems of society.

3 Later career

Beveridge was a Liberal Member of Parliament from 1944-45. In 1946 he was created a baron.

A second report, Full Employment in a Free Society, appeared in 1944. Later that year, Beveridge, a member of the Liberal Party, was elected to the House of Commons.

The following year the new Labour Government began the process of implementing Beveridge's proposals that provided the basis of the modern Welfare State. Clement Attlee and the Labour Party defeated Winston Churchill's Conservative Party in the 1945 general election. Attlee announced he would introduce the Welfare State outlined in the 1942 Beveridge Report. This included the establishment of a National Health Service in 1948 with free medical treatment for all. A national system of benefits was also introduced to provide 'social security' so that the population would be protected from the 'cradle to the grave'. The new system was partly built on the National Insurance scheme set up by Lloyd George in 1911.

Beveridge was created Baron Beveridge of Tuggal and eventually became leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords. William Beveridge, the author of Power and Influence (1953), died on 16th March 1963.

4 Major Works

Unemployment: A problem of industry, 1909.
Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century, 1939.
Social Insurance and Allied Services, 1942. (Beveridge Report) - excerpts (executive summary)
Full Employment in a Free Society, 1944.
The Economics of Full Employment, 1944.

5 See also

Liberalism
List of liberal thinkers
Clement Attlee´s Health Minister Aneurin Bevan

6 External links

Social Insurance and Allied Services, report by Sir William Beveridge, presented to Parliament by Command of His Majesty, November 1942.

Beveridge, William Beveridge, William

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1 Early life and career