In-kind welfare was favored because it improved worker efficiency and incentives.
Evidence
In Pigou’s purview the state could still take on a larger role in economic life, providing its population with basic goods such as public health care, education, social housing, leisure, or even food. As Peter Sloman notes, not only did “benefits in kind [have] less impact on incentives” to welfarists, but they could also “improve workers’ efficiency” in ways that cash transfers could never accomplish. Through Beveridge and other welfare bureaucrats, Pigou’s primacy of material needs was to become a crucial component of postwar welfare states. — Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora Vargas, Welfare for Markets, 113
Categorization
- XREF: Directly relevant to the social capital/religion welfare discussion and my earlier interest in why in-kind dominated pre-modern provision. — connects to: New Deal Keynesians favored services and full employment over direct cash transfers — Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora Vargas, Welfare for Markets: A Global History…, 143; British leaders justified welfare programs as business investments in labor — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1656; Family allowances were promoted as making male workers more reliable and strike-resistant. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 189
- ADDENDUM: Relevant to my piece ‘On Sacrifice’ only loosely, but more precisely complements ‘Grafting & Growth’ insofar as in-kind benefits are about what communities value materially rather than abstract exchange.
Broader Connections
- British leaders justified welfare programs as business investments in labor
#corroborates(0.92) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1656 - Family allowances were promoted as making male workers more reliable and strike-resistant.
#exemplifies(0.90) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 189