The Move Away from Laissez-faire

Int 2 Cradle to the Grave

Ideology of Laissez-faire

• Describes government attitudes to the welfare of its people in the 19thC

• Most people accepted that poverty and hardship were not things the government could or should do anything about

• Governments became increasingly prepared to become involved in social policy

• Eg. Education Acts, Public Health Acts, Factory & Mines Acts

Why did so many believe in LF

• MONEY – government involvement = cost

• = taxes have to go up (middle classes having to pay more but the money not being spent on them)

• “Why should we help people who are too lazy to help themselves?”

Samuel Smiles• Book called Self Help

(1859)• “Self help is the root of all

genuine growth” = best way to avoid poverty

• Believed that effort and positive thinking could make anything possible

• Encouraged people to improve themselves through hard work

• Led to inventions, fortunes, Industrial Revolution

Self Help

• “Heaven helps those who help themselves”

• The spirit of self help constitutes the true source of national strength and vigour

• Smiles warned against governments helping people too much

• Bad = makes men helpless• Role of governments should be very

limited

Whatever is done for man or classes, to a certain extent takes

away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where

men are subjected to over-guidance and over government, the inevitable

tendency is to render them comparatively helpless…it is every

day becoming more clearly understood, that the function of

government is negative and restrictive, rather than positive and

active.

Importance?• Led to belief poverty could be beaten by hard work and

positive thinking alone• Smiles said himself that any help given by government to

the poor was useless because “no laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober”

• Only way to escape poverty was through your efforts

Self Help• Average worker could

avoid poverty by working hard and saving some wages

• Savings could be used whenever the worker was out of a job, or became unable to work because of illness or old age

• Duty of the individual to look after themselves

• Those that didn’t were either idle, unable or unwilling to save, or drunks

What Self Help was there?

• Worked for those who had a regular income

• Mostly skilled• Could save money in a number of

places

Places to save if you had a regular income

Friendly societies

Popular choice, benefits given out based on contributions made. By 1890’s 8,000,000

made a contribution. Also ran social events e.g. gala days,

annual parades

Savings Banks

Popular with servants and those saving for their children. ‘Penny savings banks’ were aimed at the

very poor who could only save very small amounts. Encouraged

good habits and behaviour

The Co-operative Movement

Formed by working class. Communities would get together to provide low cost food and services for themselves e.g. a grocery

store or a funeral parlour

Critics• Not everyone liked idea of

self help• Argued not everyone could

save for a ‘rainy day’• Henry Mayhew in his great

study of London Labour and the London Poor (1861) identified that casual labourers were unable to save regularly because they did not have regular employment

• Lack of education and poor health also stopped many improving their lives

• Not possible for everybody to improve by positive thinking alone

Summary• Self help meant that people could escape poverty

by saving money and living a sensible life. Such ideas were popular

• Working class were encouraged to save through organisations like Friendly Societies and Savings Banks

• Working class helped themselves by setting up co-operative stores to provide good food/services at a fair price

• Not everyone believed that all poor people could save money for a ‘rainy day’