Economic data
Welfarism is dead
PARADED as amongst the greatest achievements of ‘advanced’ capitalist countries in the post-World War II period, the welfare state epitomised an era of widespread social prosperity. The mass of people in Western Europe, North America, and Australasia was largely guaranteed public education, healthcare, water, electricity, and other material needs. Working-age populations either found work in bustling manufacturing industries or received significant unemployment benefits. The anti-communist US ideologue, Walt Rostow, boasted that the ‘West’ had successfully entered the age of high mass consumpt