History of Social Policy

1. Explain the meaning of the following terms industrialisation urbanisation overt health problems and the implications for subject provisions The Industrial Revolution was a geological result from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manuf procedureuring, mining, and technology had an natural effect on the societys sparing and cultural conditions. beginning in the United Kingdom, then consequently spreading throughout Europe, northerly America, and ultimately the world.The Industrial Revolution marks a major move point in history. Almost every feature of daily brio was influenced in some way. Most particularly, average income and population began to exhibit wonderworking sustained growth. This is known as urbanisation. Urbanisation is the increase in the symmetry of people living in towns and cities. Rapid urbanisation took push through during this period of industrialisation, many people moved from rural to urban aras to get jobs in the rap idly expanding industries in many large towns and cities.It is estimated that 1/6 of the British population visited London during the 18th century, and the most adventurous and ambitious stayed. This urbanisation had huge implications and resulted in complex societal changes which had adverse effects on the public health of communities. Diseases desire typhoid and epidemic cholera were common. An outbreak of cholera in 1848 killed 14,000 in London. This was due to the housing shortages, sanitation problems, low standards of in the flesh(predicate) hygiene, polluted drinking water, exploitation of workers and far-flung exiguity.Great Britain in the nineteenth century was a great bastion of individualism where that unsympathetic belief of the semi constitution-making economists -laissez faire- dominated public opinion, and Parliament. The individualist theory of governing body holds that the mystify of state is to protect the liberty of individuals to act as they wish, as dou r as they do non infringe upon the liberties of others. Although there has been extended con turn out over whether this age of -laissez faire gave way to an age of collectivism, This is the period regarded as the showtime for the widespread collectivism that would ollow. Collectivism At its root is the belief that a collective is more(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) than just individuals interacting together. It is the belief that the group is an entity itself, more alpha than the sum of the individuals. Put simply by John F. Kennedy Ask not what your rural can do for you. Ask what you can do for your sylvan. And that is exactly what happened, In 1875 state intervention meant that a public health act was passed. This implemented that all spic-and-span residential construction had to include test water, and an internal drainage strategy.Also the act meant that all towns had to have pavements and avenue lights. Yet there was still alot that needed to be done which meant more state intervention was demand. The national insurance scheme introduced by the free-handed governance in 1911, gave most workers health insurance and unemployment benefits for workers in industries with lavishly risks of unemployment. But by the 1920s and 1930s the economic depression and widespread unemployment meant that the national insurance scheme was paying out more that it recieved.Benefits were vitiated and a means test was imposed. This did not change a amour however, poverty was pervasive and particularly among the families of the unemployed. 2. Assess the relationship between laissez faire and ideas of neighborly welfare and poverty in the 19th century. Give examples including reference to the brusque laws. The trus tworthy people that believed in and encouraged laissez-faire were the physiocrats (political economists). The physiocrats were followers of the physiocrat school of economic pattern, and were in a way the predecessors of classical economi sts.Although some of their more storied ideas were very backwards, like believing that exactly land (physical as clans) produced revenue, they certainly were the commencement ceremony to come up with the notion of laissez-faire. (or no government interference) In 1563 the poor of Britain were branded for the first time into deserving, and the undeserving. The elderly and the very young, the infirm, and families who irregularly undercoat themselves in financial difficulties due to a change in mise en scene were considered deserving of social bide.But people who very much turned to evil to make a living such as, highwaymen or pickpockets, migrant workers who roamed the country looking for work, and individuals who begged for a living, were to be treated unsympathetically. The act of 1572 introduced the first necessary poor local poor law tax, an important step acknowledging that alleviating poverty was the responsibility of local communities, in 1576 the concept of the workhou se was born, and in 1597 the post of super of the poor was created. The great act of 1601 combined all the previous acts and set the benchmark for the next two hundred years.The Poor Laws passed during the reign of world-beater Elizabeth played an essential role in the countrys welfare. They signalled important progression from clannish charity to welfare state, where the care and supervision of the poor was embodied in law and integral to the management of each town, village and hamlet. In 1843, the paper The Economist was founded, and became an influential voice for laissez-faire capitalism. In response to the Irish famine of 18461849, in which over 1. 5 million people died of starvation, they argued that for the government to supply free food for the Irish would violate natural law.Clarendon, the headmaster Lieutenant of Ireland, wrote, I dont think there is another legislature in Europe that would disregard such suffering. Laissez-faire insurance policy was never dictato rial in any nation, and at the end of the 19th century, European countries once more took up some economic protectionism and interventionism. France for example, started cancelling its free trade agreements with other European countries in 1890. Germanys protectionism started (again) with a December 1878 letter from Bismarck, resulting in the iron and rye whisky tariff of 1879. 1929 was a crucial year across the globe.When the United States acquit merchandise crashed, ripples were felt across Europe. As hardship and insecurity walked hand-in-hand into the 1930s, they met increase unemployment and poverty. As president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt took action by implementing a freshly economic strategy in the New Deal. This model was the optimistic activism, experimentation, and interventionist square aways that the country so desperately needed at the time whilst the USA connected herself to social justice and firmly held the belief of government responsibility towards its citizens, the USSR praised fabianism and developed communism.The United Kingdom saw the action other orbicular governments were taking, and decided to follow the stretch forth. In 1935 Attlee became the new leader of the labour party society. At that time the Conservative government feared the spread of communism from the Soviet substance to the rest of Europe. In 1940 Attlee joined the coalition government headed by Winston Churchill. He was virtually deputy Prime Minister although this post did not officially become his until 1942.It was afterwards claimed that during the Second World War Attlee worked as a restraining influence on some of Churchills wilder schemes The Labour party promulgated the Beveridge Report (1942), the bestselling report (that) set out social programs to slay the louvre giants Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness. In 1945 Herbert Morrison (who was defeated by Clement Attlee for the leadership of the Labour Party in 1935) was g iven responsibility for drafting the Labour Party manifesto that included the blueprints for the nationalization and welfare programmes. The Labour Party was a socialist party and proud of it. As a result, the Labour government established free medical care under a newly constituted National Health Service, created new systems of pensions, encourage better fostering and housing, and sought to deliver on the unambiguous commitment to full employment. In 1945, the United Kingdom gave birth to the first modern welfare state. 3. How did the political ideology of the new right wing impact on social policies under Mrs Thatcher? What is a political ideology?Alcock (2003, p. 194, original emphasis) argues that ideology is a concept that refers to the systems of beliefs within which all individuals perceive all social phenomena. He goes on to stating that in this usage no one system of beliefs is more correct, or more privileged, than any other. Heywood (2003, p. 12) suggests, an ideology is a more or less coherent set of ideas that provides the basis for organized political action, whether this is intended to preserve, modify or overthrow the existing system of power.The new right, it is generally accepted that the political ideology of the New Right adjudges two interrelated but also sometimes contradictory strands of political thought neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism. The core elements of neo-liberalism are support for individualism, laissez faire and limited government intervention in economy and society. Neo-liberals believe that individuals are rational and therefore the best adjudicate of their own best nterests and that they should be allowed the utmost possible individual independence to determine their own carriage subject only to the restriction that their behavior should not harm others. The core elements of neo-conservatism differ in several prize from those of neo-liberalism. Whereas classic liberals are all in favor of free individualistic dec ision making, conservatives put forward that this kind of individualism is a expression for anarchy and that individual freedom, can best be guaranteed via respect for handed-downistic norms, values and institutions.They declare that traditional institutions and patterns of social behavior which have stood the test of time must have done so because they have been socially beneficial which leads neo-Conservatives to support the maintenance or at most only gradual change in the existing social order which implies support for traditional sources of authority, traditional patterns of social and economic inequality, traditional institutions and traditional values.They are therefore expected to be supporters of strong but limited government, the Monarchy and the Aristocracy, the Church, the traditional family and traditional education. Under the leadership of Mrs Thatcher the conservatives do it their duty to do by with socialism and to reduce the power of the trade unions. Thatchers government made changes to the N. H. S, by creating the internal market. This was down to the Griffiths reports (1983) which suggested that the N. H. S should be run like a super market. Instead of meeting patients needs, trusts would be run in competition with one another for patients. Administration costs in the N. H. S in 1979 were around 6%. After the introduction of the internal market these costs had doubled to 12%. this shows that Thatcher had introduced inefficiencies as a result of outsourcing and duplicate of work. However, Thatchers intended privatisation was never carried through completely due to the recoil from the public.Tebbit once described the N. H. S as the nearest thing in Britain to a national religion. The conservative government also contributed in making reforms to the state education system. The Conservatives 1979 Education Act removed the requirements introduced by previous Labor Governments that Local Authorities whose secondary schools were not curren tly organized on across-the-board lines must prepare plans for the transition to comprehensive education.Also under the 1979 Act Local Authorities were requested to place greater emphasis on parental choice in the parcelling of school places although it has been suggested that in practice this requirement had only limited operable effects. The 1980 Education Act introduced an assisted Places Scheme which subsidized students who passed an entrance interrogatory but whose parents had limited funds to be educated at personal schools in the hope that this would enable these more able students to develop their talents more fully than would be possible in the state sector of education.This policy is a sign of a Conservative belief that state schools were often incapable of developing the talents of the most gifted pupils and in effect provided a state subsidy to the private education sector which the Conservatives wished to support. An important reform was the 1986 Education Act. Thi s abolished corporal punishment in state schools. Other than this the Thatcher lead conservative party made many more changes to the education system Under the terms of the 1988 Education Reform Act, the following education policies were introduced.A National Curriculum was introduced which was to be followed compulsorily in all mainstream state schools but remained optional for independent schools. The National Curriculum was originally to contain 10 compulsory subjects of which 3 English, Mathematics and Science were to be core subjects and 7 History, Geography, Technology, Music, Art, PE and a modern foreign language at key stages 3 and 4 were to be foundation subjects. Welsh was to be a effect Subject in Welsh -speaking schools and a foundation subject in Welsh non-Welsh speaking schools.RE was to be a compulsory radical subject in all schools although problems would arise surrounding the precise character of the RE curriculum which was to be primarily based around Christianit y pull out where the ethnic/religious composition of the school population suggested that this was inappropriate. In end Thatchers conservative party had an immense impact and made legion(predicate) reforms and changes whilst in government. After all she is not called a social policy expert (Clare Beckett The 20 Prime Ministers of the 20th Century) for nothing.