Beyond the Welfare State as We Knew It?

This chapter traces the different approaches to social policy as they have developed over time, starting with the early origins of the social investment perspective in the ‘productive social policy’ approach put forward in Sweden in the 1930s, before turning to a brief analysis of the Keynesian and neo-liberal eras of social policy. It suggests that the social investment perspective may represent a new, emerging social and economic policy paradigm which is based on a new understanding of social policy as a productive factor. The chapter then reviews the different critiques which have been..