So therefore it was for their own political advantage of the Liberal government to offer social reform, even if they did not fully believe in the principle of government intervention in people’s everyday lives. Although there can be an argument that gaining political advantage is what any party wants to do, because they need to get more power to make a difference in the way they think is best. However the rise of the Labour party was a massive factor for the drive of reform within the Liberal party. Another reason for Liberal reforms between 1906-14 was the investigations and findings of Booth and Rowntree. Booth carried out extensive research in London and found out that 35% of the population lived in extreme poverty, this was much higher than even the socialist.
The fact that the 1964 election was won by a mere 4 vote majority by Labour supports this opinion and gives rise to the suggestion that if it had been Butler, and not Douglas-Home leading the Conservatives then perhaps they would not have lost the election. Although it cannot be denied that Wilson’s relentless talk of ‘The white heat of technology’ suited the mood of the time. However despite Wilson’s promise of a more modern Britain the country failed to match the growth rates of the USA, Japan and Western European countries. One explanation for the poor state of the economy was that Britain at that time was going through a major shift in its economic and social structure; changing from an industrial
I will be arguing that the achievement of the Attlee Government were remarkable. The sources which I’ll be using show the impact that the Attlee Government had on Britain. From my own knowledge and also the sources, I can show that the achievements of Attlee Government were remarkable as it helped the people of Britain live much better lives. On the contrary it can also show that the achievements weren’t remarkable as it had created many problems for the country. Source 4 is suggesting that since the Attlee government had come into power sorted out many problems in Britain.
This statement is mostly false. Despite having liberal measures within trade and finance policies, the Tory government introduced a series of reforms that had a liberal outlook on them. By 1820, juries were becoming more reluctant to condemn criminals for petty crimes to death. Within Peel’s reforms, he abolished 180 capital offences within 1823 to 1828. His prison reforms also saw a new liberal approach.
The difficulty with this approach, as it later became clear, was that the problems identified by liberal sociologists set many educators to work in opposition to working class cultural practices. What happened with the liberal view of education is that culture is seen as a cause of inequality rather than as one of the effects. However, an advantage that liberal sociology did had was governmental confidence, as is often the case with quantitative research, and as a result, it enjoyed the freedom to engage in empirical research and had a chance to influence educational reform. The origins of the sociology of education in England grew directly out of the research interests of a number of sociologists who were primarily interested in social mobility, and in particular, with the way that arrangement of inequality persisted in education. Many studies where carried out that concentrated on the relationship between class and educational opportunity.
Booth was known for his theory of London being divided into six classes with the lowest dragging the higher ones further into poverty therefore worsening the problem. The idea of a ‘poverty line’ being a good measurement was further supported and Rowntree found that 28% of York was living beneath it. This, like the work of many others, supported the findings of Booth and other researchers. As this information became more and more reliable and undeniable, the reality of the social problems became clearer to the government. Another example of where the government became aware of problems is when they found out that many of the soldiers in the army were not eligible to fight as they were not fit or healthy enough during the Boer War in 1902.
Since the 1944 Butler Act which introduced the tripartite system and 11+, the key purpose of educational policy has focused on equality of opportunity and meritocratic ideals. However, many sociologists would argue that rather than promoting meritocracy the tripartite system and 11+ has reproduced class inequality by providing unequal opportunities. Also some policies introduced since then have been effective at achieving greater equality of opportunity whereas some have resulted in more inequality. In 1979, the New Conservative government who had strong influence from the New Right, brought in the idea of marketisation of education; however it was not until the 1988 Education Reform Act that this idea was fully put into practice. The whole idea behind marketisation was that by introducing the ideas of big business into schools the education system would improve.
62% of children growing up in poverty are in households where at least one of person works, so having a job is still not a direct route out of poverty (Child Poverty Map of the UK, March 2011). Low wages/minimum raised in line with the ever-increasing cost of living. Those that are currently unemployed down to the economic crisis and are claiming welfare payments are only going to be pushed further into poverty if the plans to freeze the benefits received and not increasing them in line with inflation (Charlotte Philby, Oliver Wright, 03/12/12). The ‘scrounger’ stigma that the media has created about those that do claim is also a cause, so much so that around 1.8 million people have
Social security is extremely important for the well being of elders, injured workers, and the handicapped. If this program were able to be privatized in the stock market, the economy would be another variable to add to the many social security has. By investing social security in the stock market, the downfall of the market could lower peoples living conditions considerably, and erase what has have been paid for possibly decades. One argument used is that social security does not do enough for people to live on. About one in five people use social security as the only source of income, and more than half use social security for more then half of the annual income (Anspach).
Unfortunately the large number of programs that have resulted has led to many overlapping programs that are a veritable hodgepodge that is of unknown efficacy. Unlike many of the welfare states in Europe the United States welfare system has restricted nearly all of its benefits to the bottom one-third of income earners through extensive means testing on income and/or wealth. One good aspect of this is that the Federal government does not take up nearly 50% of all incomes in taxes as is common in Sweden, France etc.. These countries typically spread their social programs out to nearly all residents but then tax the benefits and impose a 15-25% VAT (sales tax) to recapture much of it. Unfortunately, since the programs in the United States seem to be focused on alleviating some of the effects of relative poverty they have done a "lousy" job of teaching people how to stay out of poverty--finish school, don't have children unless you are married, get a job and good intentions are not enough.