平等与繁荣能否共存——从福利国家变迁看社会政策的工具性作用

Co-occurrence of Equality and Prosperity? On the Instrumental Role of Social Policy in Evolving Welfare State

本文通过回顾福利国家的变迁,试图呈现作为工具的社会政策是如何平衡经济发展与社会平等的。资本主义工业化时期,“福利国家模式”之所以成功是因其劳动力“去商品化”的政策内核很好地应对了当时经济增长与社会平等的“共同利益”。然而,20世纪80年代以来,在新形势下,福利国家劳动力“去商品化”策略失效,这不仅阻碍了经济的发展,也无法促进社会平等。而新形势下经济与社会的“共同利益”,要求社会政策向劳动力的“再商品化”转型。这一转型趋势不可逆转,但其中也蕴含着自由主义与全球化的威胁。

By reviewing changes taken place in the welfare state, this paper attempts to understand the social policy as a tool to balance economic development with social equality. It was found that during the period of capitalist industrialization, the core of the “welfare state model” was the “de-commodification” of labor force, which successfully responded to the “common interests” of economic growth and social equality. However, it has failed to deal with new problems resulted from post-industrialization, aging, and globalization since the 1980s. The “common interests” of the economy and society in the new context require social policies to shift to the “re-commodification” of labor.