Understanding Social Insurance: Risk and Value Pluralism in the Early British Welfare State

• Author: Rachel Z. Friedman
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912921994675
• Published date: 01 June 2022
• Date: 01 June 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

2022, Vol. 75(2) 278 –290

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912921994675

Political Research Quarterly

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912921994675

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Social insurance—the provision of event-conditioned

benefits through a publicly operated system of contribu-

tions and distribution—has long been a central policy

tool of the modern welfare state. Scholars have advanced

a number of normative explanations for the practice,

including its ability to promote economic efficiency (Barr

1989; Heath 2011), its expression of relational or distrib-

utive equality (Anderson 2008; Dworkin 2000; Landes

and Néron 2015), and its role in cultivating social solidar-

ity (Lehtonen and Liukko 2015; Liukko 2010). While

these aims are not mutually exclusive, prioritizing one or

another can lead to different policy outcomes. For

instance, a social insurance system that aims to promote

efficiency by satisfying individual preferences for secu-

rity will not necessarily lead to egalitarian results (Heath

2006, 346–48), while a system that aims for solidarity by

providing uniform benefits to all may not satisfy the

demands of wealthier citizens to insure themselves at

desired levels of consumption (Ebbinghaus and Gronwald

2011; Korpi and Palme 1998). As Joseph Heath puts it,

“even among the most enthusiastic supporters of the wel-

fare state there are several different theoretical recon-

structions of the normative commitments that are taken to

underlie it, all of which are in tension with one another”

(Heath 2011, 14).

Acknowledging the force of this observation, this arti-

cle seeks to make two contributions to the understanding

of social insurance. First, it argues that the best normative

account of this practice is a value-pluralist one, which

pursues efficiency as well as equality or solidarity,

grounded in group-based perceptions of risk. Focusing on

the emergence of social insurance in Britain, it argues that

a plurality of principles found expression in public

debates and policies at this time. Such a pluralist recon-

struction better characterizes the emergence of the prac-

tice and its purposes than a model that focuses solely on

any one principle.

Second, the article locates an important but little

remarked strand of theoretical support for early social

insurance programs in antecedent developments in math-

ematical probability and statistics. This strand of thinking

originated with frequentism, an interpretation of proba-

bility that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century and

enjoyed particular prominence in Britain. Frequentism

helped to justify a collective response to uncertainty, and

was moreover linked with both utilitarianism and devel-

opments in statistical thinking. While by no means the

only source of support for social insurance, these

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PRQXXX10.1177/1065912921994675Political Research QuarterlyFriedman

research-article2021

1Tel Aviv University, Israel

Corresponding Author:

Rachel Z. Friedman, The Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv

University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel.

Emails: rachelf3@tauex.tau.ac.il; rachelzfriedman@gmail.com

Understanding Social Insurance:

Risk and Value Pluralism in the Early

British Welfare State

Rachel Z. Friedman1

Abstract

This article seeks to make two contributions to the understanding of social insurance, a central policy tool of the

modern welfare state. Focusing on Britain, it locates an important strand of theoretical support for early social

insurance programs in antecedent developments in mathematical probability and statistics. While by no means the only

source of support for social insurance, it argues that these philosophical developments were among the preconditions

for the emergence of welfare policies. In addition, understanding the influence of these developments on British public

discourse and policy sheds light on the normative principles that have undergirded the welfare state since its inception.

Specifically, it suggests that the best model, or normative reconstruction, of social insurance in this context is a value-

pluralist one, which pursues efficiency and equality or solidarity, grounded in group-based perceptions of risk.

Keywords

social insurance, welfare state, market failures, efficiency, pensions, unemployment insurance

Article