SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH CENTER OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA. The Welfare State: Menace or Millennium? Pp. vii, 58. Minneapolis, 1950. No price
| Author | J. Roland Pennock |
| Published date | 01 March 1951 |
| Date | 01 March 1951 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/000271625127400146 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
221
the
Hoover
recommendations.
The
Com-
mission
favors
decentralization
in
personnel
administration,
in
the
management
of
field
services,
and
as
a
guiding
principle
in
Federal-State
relations.
The
author
finds
these
recommendations
vague
and
unpene-
trating
and,
in
such
form,
potential
threats
to
strong
central
management.
In
a
final
chapter,
Emmerich
catalogue
the
unfinished
business
of
federal
reor-
ganizations.
Among
his
items
are
the
lack
of
a
comprehensive
planning
staff,
means
for
affording
an
integrated
consideration
of
basic
national
policies
on
national
se-
curity
and
full
employment,
improvement
of
government
personnel,
and
a
redefining
of
the
place
of
the
independent
regulatory
commission.
This
book
is
an
invaluable
response
to
our
need
of
a
general
analytical
essay
on
governmental
reorganizations.
The
insights
are
astute
and
numerous.
There
are
new
and
illuminating
facts
offered
with
as-
surance
by
an
author
who
participated
in
the
work
of
the
President’s
Committee
of
1937
and
has
observed
closely
and
wisely
the
shifting
administrative
scene
in
Wash-
ington.
LOUIS
W.
KOENIG
New
York
University
SOCIAL
SCIENCE
RESEARCH
CENTER
OF
THE
GRADUATE
SCHOOL,
UNIVERSITY
OF
MIN-
NESOTA.
The
Welfare
State:
Menace
or
Millennium?
Pp.
vii,
58.
Minneapolis,
1950.
No
price.
The
brochure
under
review
constitutes
the
third
in
a
series
of
annual
public
lec-
tures
on
problems
of
current
interest
in
the
social
sciences.
The
lectures
are
in-
tended
to
be
semi-popular
treatments
of
social
issues,
and
so
presumably
they
are
not
expected
to
make
contributions
to
scientific
knowledge
or
to
systematic
anal-
ysis.
Even
granted
the
objective,
perhaps
because
of
the
limitations
of
space
(four
fifteen-page
lectures),
the
reader
is
left
with
a
sense
of
disappointment.
The
first
lecture,
by
Professor
of
Social
Work
John
C.
Kindleigh,
is
entitled
&dquo;The
Welfare
State:
What
Is
It?&dquo;
If
the
inten-
tion
of
those
who
planned
the
series
was
to
have
this
lecture define
the
issues,
it
must
be
judged
something
less
than
success-
ful,
for
each
of
the
subsequent
lecturerers
felt
the
necessity
of
presenting
his
own,
distinctive,
definition
of
&dquo;welfare
state.&dquo;
Professor
Kindleigh
performs
the
service
of
showing
that
this
country
has
from
the
very
beginning
accepted
a
broad
respon-
sibility
for
welfare
and
that
the
arguments
used
against
new
ventures
in
this
direc-
tion
in
the
early
and
middle
years
of
the
republic
are
the
same
as
those
we
hear
today.
In
what
appeals
to
the
reviewer
as
the
best
of
the
lectures,
the
political
scientist,
Professor
Asher
N.
Christensen,
discusses
the
political
implications
of
the
welfare
state,
making
a
distinction,
unlike
his
pred-
ecessor
in
the
series,
between
the
welfare
state
and
the
American
state
of
the
nine-
teenth
century.
He
believes
that
the
most
striking
political
repercussion
will
be
an
intensification
of
the
movement
toward
fed-
eral
centralization,
and
he
argues
persua-
sively
that
this
shift
need
not
involve
any
loss
of
democratic
control.
An
economist,
Professor
Dale
Yoder,
essays
to
measure
the
costs
of
the
welfare
state.
He
finds
that
current
proposals
will
cost
the
1950
wage
earner
(who
earns
about
$50
a
week,
on
the
average)
anywhere
from
$7.50
to
$15.00
per
week.
If
he
wants
the
package
now
of
course
he
must
sacrifice
something
else.
If
he
takes
it
gradually,
over
the
next
thirty
years,
it
is
reasonable
tc
assume
that
even
the
de
luxe
model
can
be
paid
for
entirely
out
of
gains
in
produc-
tivity.
All
plans,
however,
must
be
care-
fully
watched
for
indirect
costs.
Schemes
which
tend
to
limit
the
mobility
of
labor,
for
example,
might
well
involve
far
more
in
indirect
costs,
through
interference
with
the
optimum
combination
of
the
factors
of
production,
than
they
do
in
direct
costs.
Unfortunately,
Professor
Yoder
makes
no
attempt
to
analyze
pending
proposals
with
respect
to
this
important
consideration.
In-
stead
he
concludes
his
lecture
with
desul-
tory
comments
on
present
pension
pro-
posals,
intended
to
support
his
assertion
that
they
are
&dquo;no
bargains.&dquo;
The
concluding
lecture,
by
Dr.
John
E.
Anderson,
Director
of
the
Institute
of
Child
Welfare
of
the
University
of
Min-
nesota,
discusses
the
question
whether
the
welfare
state
interferes
with
self-reliance
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