Volume 32, Number 3 · February 28, 1985
'Welfare': The Future of an Illusion
By Andrew Hacker
The Economic Illusion: False Choices Between Prosperity and Social Justice
by Robert Kuttner
Houghton Mifflin, 308 pp., $19.95
Capitalism and the Welfare State: Dilemmas of Social Benevolence
by Neil Gilbert
Yale University Press, 196 pp., $16.95
Kate Quinton's Days
by Susan Sheehan
Houghton Mifflin, 158 pp., $15.95
Selective Nontreatment of Handicapped Newborns: Moral Dilemmas in Neonatal Medicine
by Robert F. Weir
Oxford University Press, 292 pp., $27.95
What Is a Wife Worth?
by Michael H. Minton, with Jean Libman Block
Morrow, 192 pp., $11.95
Demographic and Socioeconomic Aspects of Aging in the United States
Bureau of the Census, US Department of Commerce (Series P-23, No. 138)
US Government Printing Office, 149 pp., $5.50
Catholic Social Teaching and the US Economy
US Bishops Ad Hoc Committee
National Catholic News Service, 47 pp., $3.00
Even the phrase 'welfare state' makes most Americans uneasy. For conservatives and neoconservatives, it smacks of socialism or, worse, European influences. For many, welfare has become synonymous with public assistance and other programs thought to foster indolence. Hence George Gilder's adage, 'the poor most of all need the spur of their own poverty.' If many liberals and those further to the left support the welfare idea, they are unsure about its scope and proper clientele. Still, more than a few will agree with Michael Walzer that a welfare state 'expresses a certain civil spirit, a sense of mutuality, a commitment to justice.' Even so, the question is still raised whether programs will be largely for the poor, or if other classes should get services that are free or subsidized.
Review, 7800 words
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