Introduction

The discussion of liberty, equality and fraternity has been a major influence on political thought since the time of the French Revolution. The case can be made for a much longer historical perspective on each – the libertarianism of religious dissenters, the egalitarianism of the Levellers, and the fraternity of the guilds – but the effect of the Revolution was to make these principles central to radical approaches. The French Revolution marked the triumph of ‘the people’. It pronounced, in 1789, the Declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen.⁷ In theoretical terms, many of the ideas were ill worked out. For example, the revolutionaries proclaimed the rights of man, but women were largely excluded from the process.⁸ In practical terms, revolutionary zeal turned to fanaticism, and the Revolution turned on itself.

The influence of the Revolution has played a major part in shaping the way that people think about their society. Two hundred years ago, the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity were seen as radical, challenging and iconoclastic. In modern societies, although there are many differences in interpretation and approach, it has become hard to find people who do not accept the ideas to some extent. Political arguments from across the spectrum have come to accept at least part of the principles on which the revolutionary arguments were based. The ideal of a free society is generally acknowledged, even if it is not universally respected. Although the principle of equality is often seen as contentious, the revolutionary argument for an open society, allowing people to move across the boundaries of class, caste and race, is widely accepted. The idea of fraternity is less directly accepted, but the principles of collective action and social responsibility are widely recognised. This general agreement is as true of the right wing as of the left. The president of France, Jacques Chirac, recently began a speech when he described the principles of the French republic in these terms:

It is on the basis of liberty, guaranteed by the primacy of the law on individual interests; on equality between men and women, equality of opportunities, rights, and duties; on fraternity between all the French, whatever their condition or their origin.⁹

The radicals of the 18th century were talking about unrealised ideals. In the present day, by contrast, governments produce documents with titles like Inequalities in health¹⁰ or Pensions tomorrow: A contract between the generations¹¹ (the French government’s review of pensions). The concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity have become part of the everyday discourse of politics, and the principles have become a routine influence on policy in practice. Many of the ideas around liberty, equality and fraternity are radical, in the sense that they represent a challenge to existing patterns of social relationships. They are also central to contemporary political debates, in the sense that they address core perceptions of people and society.

This book focuses mainly on the relationship between these concepts and social policy. Social policy is a field of study concerned with social welfare and the social services. The main focus is not policy for society in a general sense, but the specific patterns of provision made for people in respect of states of dependency, such as old age, childhood, sickness and unemployment.¹² Social welfare provision depends on a complex constellation of political, economic and legal provisions, conventionally (if sometimes unhelpfully) described in terms of ‘welfare states’. The alternative idea of ‘social protection’ is increasingly used in Europe to refer to the elements of social welfare provision, both within and beyond the remit of the state, which offer security and services to people in states of dependency. This book is concerned only with a small part of a vast subject area, although the principles and ideals discussed in it cut across many other issues.

Almost all governments with developed economies have some sort of system of welfare provision. The reasons why that is true are complex; they depend on the interplay of historical, organisational, economic, social and cultural factors.¹³ It would be difficult, though, to understand much of what happens in welfare provision without some reference to political values – whether to those on the right who have stood for social responsibility and religious duty, or those on the left who have been committed to collective action and working-class movements. The focus in this book on three principles – liberty, equality and fraternity – is not intended to be an account of every ideal which relates to welfare or provision. But the principles are important in their own right. The circumstances of welfare offer an insight into those concepts. Equally, I think, the concepts open a window onto different ways of thinking about welfare and social protection.