Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Politics, Industrialization and Citizenship: Unemployment Policy in England, France and the United States, 1890–1950

1995; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 40; Issue: S3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0020859000113616

1469-512X

Miriam Cohen, Michael Hanagan,

French Historical and Cultural Studies

With the “forward march of labor halted”, and labor movements everywhere in retreat, T.H. Marshall's state-based emphasis on social welfare as “social right” has reminded those interested in reform that appeals to membership in a national community, the essence of citizenship, have served to rally groups to successful struggles for reform. Those aspects of Marshall's ideas, best summarized in his classic 1949 address, “Citizenship and Social Class”, with the greatest resonance for modern social theorists revolve around the relationship between citizenship, rights and markets. For Marshall, “the universal status of citizenship” was a plane of equality such that “all who possess the status (of citizenship) are equal with respect to the rights and duties with which the status is endowed”. Rights were embodied in a common culture and enforced by state power. Marshall believed that, gradually, one particular kind of rights, “social rights”, would come to limit the power of the market. While markets would continue to exist and to generate social inequality, government redistribution would increasingly expand the plane of equality to include the most important aspects of material and cultural life. The distinctive feature of these social rights according to Marshall is that they were not exemptions, privileges or paternalistic solicitude for those excluded from what he labels the “national community”, but social rights were benefits given to members of the community to encourage and facilitate their continued participation .