Biografía de Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse

¿Quién fue Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse?

A journalist and socialist thinker, Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864-1929) is best remembered today for his writings on liberalism and his advocacy of Guild Socialism.

In one of his most famous works, The Theory of Knowledge: Its Meaning, Authority and Function (1912), he pointed out the limitations of all particular approaches to the acquisition of knowledge and the need that all ‘the ways of knowing’ should be allowed to function in a free and critical spirit.

7. Como despuntaron las propuestas de New Labour al tratar de sustituir la caridad por el bienestar social

Desde beginnings of the twentieth century, British society as a whole began to show interest in political and social welfare. Various organizations and individuals fought for social reform and the construction of a modern society. Among these, Hobhouse was a good example.

Here, it is important to write briefly about the social policy and well-being of Great Britain. I hope to shows some context for the next section of this report.

In the British welfare system three main principles have been stressed: first, that people have certain ‘positive rights’; second, that the state has a duty to provide assistance and resources as a government responsibility; and third, that the welfare system should be based on collective provision rather than voluntary one (Court 1999).

On the one hand, it has been argued that, although in the beginning the British welfare system was at the vanguard of international developments, it became out of date with the emergence of the socialist states in Europe. In the past, Great Britain and the United States were considered leaders in the field of social welfare, but in the 21st century it was not real. On the other hand, the British welfare system has many worse fault and needs to be improved. Therefore, it has to be reformed and overhauled continuously.

The British welfare system started after the Industrial Revolution when there was a big change in economicVie properties, work and how citizens were socialised. The families were not able to support their children who were under the age of 10. The middle and upper class citizens who owned factories hired children because of their cheap paid and generated profit, but children were not able to required psychological and physical needs and suffer in many ways such as malnutrition, violence, accidents, etc. The government felt obligated to take some actions to provide economical and psychological support to poor families (caida de la dominación de Gran Bretaña en los s.XX).

Nowadays, the British welfare system is central to any debate on how to achieve a tolerable and just society. The aim of this thesis is to examine the relationship between our evaluation of the size and capacity of the United Kingdom’s welfare system and for reforming it.

From all this, it is clear that the definition of the British welfare system needs to be reviewed because it is not well-defined. At the same time, in this paper, I argue that the British welfare system should not be reduced, as it is an important year of development and improvement in our country..