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Beveridge Was Not A Socialist And He Was Not A Revolutionary, And Neither Was ...

Beveridge was not a socialist and he was not a revolutionary, and neither was his report. As Eveline Burns points out:
In this context it can be seen that the Beveridge report is evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. The great contribution of the author consists in his recognition of the fact that the end of one stage of development had in fact been reached and that the time was ripe for the reorganization and new unification of the various programs in conformity with the changed social attitudes.(3)
Whilst I have broken with any idea of this being a report of revolutionary proportions, I must also break with the argument of Bartholemew, which I believe was somewhat dismissive of the report. He states:
So what did Beveridge propose? It was very simple. Everyone would make flat-rate contributions to a national insurance scheme. Those who fell ill, became unemployed or reached retirement age would, in return, receive flat-rate payments. That is it. The rest was detail.(4)
Bartholemew may technically be correct. The report did contain a lot of detail centred on this core principle. But the report also contained a vision or blueprint for the future, and in many respects, it was this part of the report which was of particular interest, as Beveridge went far beyond his initial remit. It is some of these ideas which I would like to look at now.
As Burns points out:
It should be noted first of all that the report is essentially concerned with assuring freedom from want, in so far as want is due to interruptions of income or to the occurrence of costs unrelated to income to which all or the vast majority of the population are at some time or other liable.(5)
But this attack on want only formulated one part of the overall objectives, which was to attack what Beveridge described as the five giants. Beveridge stated in his second of three guiding principles:
The second principle is that organisation of social insurance should be treated as on part of a comprehensive policy of social progress. Social insurance fully developed income security; it is an attack upon want. But want is one only of the five giants on the road to reconstruction and in some ways the easiest to attack. The others are disease, ignorance squalor and idleness.(6)
Within the report, it was only the giants of want and by implication, idleness which were tackled head on. But with some imagination, it is not difficult to foresee the origins of the NHS, the development of a comprehensive education system and a local authority house building programme within its pages. Beveridge embodied within his plan, a vision for the future, which could be tackled piece by piece, beginning with want. The picture painted by Beveridge was an overall scheme which he described as follows:
The scheme embodies six fundamental principles; flat rate of contribution; unification of administrative responsibility; adequacy of benefit; comprehensiveness; and classification.


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