A Life of One's Own: Individual Rights and the Welfare State

Description

The end of welfare as we know it? -- What is a welfare right? -- The emergence of welfare rights -- Economic freedom and economic risk -- Welfare and benevolence -- Community and contract.;David Kelley subjects the institutions of the contemporary welfare state to sustained and withering criticism. A Life of One's Own is a devastating refutation of the flawed concept of "welfare rights." Kelley presents empirical evidence of the welfare state's effects on behavior, historical research on the origins of the welfare state (and on what it displaced), and philosophical clarification of such core ideas as freedom and rights. After a careful examination of the various arguments made on behalf of welfare rights, Kelley concludes that "the concept of welfare rights is invalid." The end of welfare as we know it? -- What is a welfare right? -- The emergence of welfare rights -- Economic freedom and economic risk -- Welfare and benevolence -- Community and contract.