Social Assistance

Article Review # 100415

Canadian Studies
Labor Studies
Political Science

Social Assistance

Analyzes 3 articles on social assistance: "Slouching toward the Bottom? Provincial Social Assistance Provision in Canada", "Alberta: One-Party "Dominance and Neo-Liberalism", & "Aroused like One from Sleep: From NewPoor Law to Contractual Workfare".

1,133 words () | 3 sources | MLA | 2007 United States

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer notes how neo-liberal policy has its roots in nineteenth century conceptions about the unemployed - and how this mind-set has crept back into the provincial policy-making of modern-day Canada. While discussing the three articles, the writer suggests that the climate of entitlement which characterized the period from 1945 to at least the middle 1970s in much of the western world has given way to a neo-liberal ethic that actually hearkens back to an earlier time wherein obligations on the part of those who found themselves under-employed were considered at least as important as the rights those individuals had to secure shelter and some form of income. The writer concludes that social policy is cyclical, and that the articles appear to capture that trend.

From the Paper:

"Before bringing this paper to a close, a few final points are in order. Clearly, there can be little question that all of the articles touch upon the new-found popularity of neo-liberal policies in an age of globalization and in an age of governmental retreat brought about by the new fluidity of capital, people, information and resources - a fluidity which has dramatically curtailed the power of government to execute labor policy as it once did. Beyond that, it may be said that these articles craft a compelling picture of the ideological and political reasons why governmental actors did not strive harder, when it became clear that the easy affluence and low unemployment of the immediate post-War period was no longer guaranteed, to protect the entitlements and generous provisions to which many Canadians had become accustomed after 1945. Ultimately, economic pressures provided a welcome excuse for neo-conservative statesmen to pursue reformist measures that would have been unthinkable a generation earlier."

Sample of Sources Used:

Boychuk, Gerard. "Slouching toward the bottom? Provincial social assistance provision in Canada, 1980-2000." Racing to the Bottom? Ed. K. Harrison. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006. pp. 157-192.
Haddow, Rodney and Thomas Klassen. "Alberta: One-Party Dominance and Neo-Liberalism." Partisanship, Globalization and Canadian Labour Market Policy Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. Chap. 7.
King, Desmond. "Aroused like One from Sleep: From New Poor Law to Contractual Workfare." In the Name of Liberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. 226-257.