After the Welfare State

Raymond B. Blake is director of the Centre for Canadian Studies at Mount
Allison University, the author of Canadians at Last: Canada Integrates
Newfoundland as a Province, and co-editor of Social Welfare Policy in
Canada: Historical Readings.

This book, which emerged out of a course on the welfare state that the
author taught as part of the University of Regina’s Graduate Social
Work program, reflects a Marxist perspective.

Collier argues that, in the past, the welfare state was never intended
to redistribute the wealth; rather, its primary function was to provide
the people with the basics of life and thereby guarantee the hegemony of
the capitalist system. Recently, the welfare state has been attacked by
various economic, political, and ideological movements that have left it
shaken and vulnerable. It is further threatened by the increasing
globalization of financial markets. In this period of transformation,
Collier argues, it is imperative that social workers and others in
helping professions “put considerable effort into organizing
self-help, protection and defence throughout society.”