No wealth but life: Welfare economics and the welfare state in Britain, 1880 - 1945

Abstract

British welfare economics between 1880 and 1945 underwent a transformation that was inextricably linked to the emergence of the welfare state. While conventional histories focus on internal theoretical developments within the Cambridge School—shifting from the work of Sidgwick and Marshall to that of Pigou and Keynes—the actual evolution of the field was defined by a broader intellectual context involving ethics, policy advocacy, and competing philosophical foundations. The Cambridge tradition, rooted in utilitarianism and the professionalization of economic science, existed alongside an influential Oxford approach founded on T. H. Green’s idealist philosophy and John Ruskin’s critique of commercial value. This Oxford tradition, represented by J. A. Hobson and Arnold Toynbee, emphasized organic welfare and human character over quantitative measures of utility, directly informing the “New Liberalism” and subsequent social reforms. Furthermore, literary figures such as H. G. Wells acted as significant conduits for these ideas, influencing political leaders like Winston Churchill and Lloyd George. The development of social security and full employment policies reflects a complex dialogue between Keynesian macroeconomic management and William Beveridge’s administrative social insurance. Ultimately, the transition to the “New Welfare Economics” in the 1930s represents a narrowing of this pluralistic discourse, as the discipline sought to divorce economic science from the explicit ethical value judgments that had previously driven British social reform. – AI-generated abstract.