Book review: Re-reviews: the political economy of the welfare state, Ian Gough

Ian Gough's The Political Economy of the Welfare State was published in 1979, the year Margaret Thatcher won power (Gough 1979). While many of the arguments embodied in it had been explored well before, it may be seen as a critical document for the exposition of a view about the relationship between capitalism and the welfare state. It introduced many to a Marxist perspective which, most of its reviewers acknowledged, needed to be taken into account. I was not amongst the reviewers but Glen Bramley and I, in Analysing Social Policy (Hill and Bramley 1986), offered a cautious welcome to it which was perhaps typical of the reaction of many who acknowledged the power of its challenge to the idea of the welfare state as a ‘social democratic’ project providing a basis for a ‘truce’ between capital and labour.