The State, Class Ideology and Social Policy

This article suggests that a central tradition in social administration finds difficulty in accommodating theoretical perspectives which offer a thorough-going critique of the suitability of the state as a vehicle for maximizing welfare. The point is illustrated through consideration of social administration's treatment of marxist work on the problem of how contemporary capitalist welfare states can retain political legitimacy. Two possible solutions to the problem in the work of Marx and subsequent marxists are identified. One stresses the success of the dominant class in persuading the subordinate class of the legitimacy of its power. The other argues that this process is aided by the ideological framework in which it takes place and that this framework of ideas results not only from the activity of the ruling class but also from the experience of everyday life in capitalist society. The former tends to be the version of marxism presented in social administration treatment. It offers a less radical critique because it can be taken to suggest that the main barrier to welfare lies in the individual members of a particular social group who can in principal be defeated in a ‘battle for consciousness’; and not so much in a particular kind of social life, which represents a more profound obstacle.