The Welfare of Nations

In his bestselling book, The Welfare State We're In, James Bartholomew controversially argued that the British welfare state has done more harm than good. Many people - including Lady Thatcher - responded by saying, "If that is the case, what should we do about it?". Now, in The Welfare of Nations, Bartholomew tries to answer that question. He travels to eleven countries around the world, from Australia in the east and San Francisco in the west, to see what happens elsewhere and what models we might follow. He goes to Switzerland and Spain to work out why unemployment is so low in the former and so high in the latter. How should that influence the way we do things in Britain? His search for the best healthcare system in the world takes him across the globe as he teases out their advantages and failings. He visits the social housing blocks of Marseilles ruled by violent drug gangs. Why has French 'solidarite' failed so spectacularly? Why does the social housing in Singapore work so much better? The Swedish welfare state takes a positive attitude towards divorce and lone parenting. Britain has been going in the same direction.But is this really a better than what happens in Italy and Spain where they still value marriage and extended families? Why have so many welfare states failed to educate children well enough even to read properly? And what can be done about it? The twentieth century experienced an epochal war between capitalism and communism. Bartholomew argues that, out of the ashes of that conflict, the real winner has been neither communism nor capitalism. It has been welfare statism - the new, defining form of government of our age that has swept across the advanced world. Without any revolution or great theorist, welfare states are changing the nature of modern civilisation. But in what ways? And what lessons can be learned before it is too late?