Chapter 9
Active Compassion
Western countries are at varying stages in the development of institutional provision of welfare. In this chapter I have taken four groups of people: the young, old, disabled and dying and have asked what an active and compassionate approach might mean for them. In Britain the Liberal reformer, Lord Beveridge, was the pioneer of social welfare legislation. He concluded his booklet Insurance For All and Everything1 with the question: 'Can we not join now to put one more fear beneath our feet for ever, to bring our country one stage nearer to the dream of the psalmist? "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread?"' It took Atlee's post-war Labour Government to implement Beveridge's proposals for social security and welfare. I would rank this in importance with the 1944 Education Act, promoted by the Conservative Minister, R.A. Butler. These two key pieces of post-war legislation ensured access to health, welfare and education, regardless of wealth. Elsewhere in Europe, socialists, liberals and Christian Democrats made significant contributions in recognising the need for the State to be involved in anchoring social reforms by financing them and giving them legal status. European Christian Democrats had a distinctly Beveridgian view of life; and still do. Hence their support for the European Social Charter against the opposition of Mrs Thatcher. Arie Oostlander, the Dutch Christian Democrat thinker and MEP, says:
Neither the development of health and welfare services nor educational systems, nor decent living conditions for citizens can come about without the active involvement of the state ... these are matters of the common good and have to be promoted by the state. The guarantee of a minimum standard of living is likewise one of the basic tasks which have to be accomplished by the state.2