The Ethics of Stakeholding by Keith Dowding, Jurgen De Wispelaere and Stuart White, Palgrave.
Macmillan, 2006, hardback

The welfare state has come under serious pressure across much of the Western world in recent decades. The changing economic and social situation has presented major challenges to a welfare state model that was designed for an earlier era. The failure of many countries to adjust their welfare systems in a meaningful and effective way has led to widespread inequality, poverty, unemployment, social exclusion and a greater sense of insecurity.

Market-based strategies have failed to address the new challenges. Socialist approaches have tended to remain locked into solutions that are not appropiate or viable in the new, globalised world. A new social paradigm is required that can harness the capacity of markets with the equality and social inclusion of state interventions.

Several publications, of which this book is a very good example, have explored a ‘stakeholding’ paradigm. This approach differs from traditional approaches to welfare because it seeks to prevent social problems rather than deal with them as consequences. It is aimed directly at changing the distribution of assets and opportunities.

A stakeholder society as outlined here would have at least four general types of policy:

• A universal basic income where all citizens receive a uniform basic income grant as a right;
• Universal basic capital which would provide all citizens with a uniform capital grant on reaching maturity;
• Targeting asset-building where poorer citizens receive subsidies enabling them to accumulate assets;
• Universal asset building where the state encourages or requires all citizens to build a minimum quantity of assets.

The arguments put forward in favour of a stakeholder society include entitlement (or rights), individual freedom, equality of opportunity, democratic participation and promoting economic efficiency.

If issues such as inequality, poverty, social exclusion and access to meaningful work are to be addressed effectively it is essential that the discussion moves beyond what is deemed to be politically possible in the immediate future. The models proposed for the future must be applicable across the world, not just in better-off countries. This book contains an excelent discussion of alternatives that are required if we are ever to build a society characterised by fairness and wellbeing.