The World's Greatest Idea

by Farndon, John

  At the heart of Beveridge’s plan was a compulsory insurance scheme under which every worker would contribute out of their pay-packets to a national pot that would pay out benefits to anyone who was unemployed or unable to work through sickness. There were family allowances including child benefits, maternity payments and training grants, too. And for those who hadn’t paid enough in insurance contributions, there was a second tier of benefits, known as national assistance (later renamed supplementary benefit and then income support). Beyond that, the plan would extend the government pension, and create cheap housing, universal secondary education and, most famous of all, an entirely free National Health Service.

  It was a grand vision for a country where people would always be looked after if they were sick, old or vulnerable, where no one would lack the basic needs of life, and where everyone would live in decent houses and get a good education so that they would have the chance to fulfil their potential in life. Although it emerged from the wartime coalition, it was the Labour party who won the right to put the plan into action with their landslide election victory at the end of the war. They did so with an astonishing rapidity that spread an almost missionary zeal across the country, as people tried to create a better future from the ruins of the war. All the main measures were in place within four years. The crowning achievement was Health Minister Nye Bevan’s establishment of the National Health Service in 1948.

  Britain was not alone in creating a welfare society after the war. Appalled by the cataclysmic impact of fascism and communism, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt had already agreed in 1941 under the Atlantic Charter that there was to be global cooperation to improve social welfare and an international commitment to stop people living in want and fear. When the war was finally over, the Atlantic Charter became the inspiration for the United Nations, and in 1946, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose Article 22 recognised that: ‘Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security’.

  The western European nations, at least, were as good as their word. In the aftermath of the Second World War, every major western European state introduced its own welfare system. Each country started to provide a high level of social support, ranging from universal payments for those out of work to health insurance for all.[3] Other nations, such as Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, would soon follow suit. The idea that the state should look after its poor, sick and vulnerable is now widely accepted around the world.

  There is an argument that Western leaders embraced welfare not through benevolence but fear of what could happen if the problems of the poor were left unaddressed. Welfare, it is suggested, was simply a sop to keep a lid on problems. That was the accusation of many socialists who felt the Labour party had betrayed its cause by setting up the welfare state, helping to prolong capitalism. But for all those motivated by fear, there were many more who were deeply committed to creating a more caring state and many millions of ordinary people who embraced the idea enthusiastically.

  The impact of the welfare state was immediate, and played a huge part in reducing the suffering of the poor. In the 1930s, many people in Europe still suffered the deprivation now associated with India. But within a decade of the introduction of the welfare state that kind of extreme hardship was all but forgotten. Even the very poorest people in Europe had at least a basic level of support that kept them fed, warm and well. No children in welfare state Europe were ever forced to wear rags and go barefoot, or die from malnutrition as they had before.[4]

  The welfare state now seems such a part of the fabric of everyday life in many countries that it is hard to imagine life without it. Yet it still has many critics. Some object on principle. The imposition of taxes on everyone to pay for others’ needs, they assert, is an infringement of individual liberty. The welfare state is a system based on compulsion because it needs everyone to contribute for it to work. This argument neatly forgets that the welfare systems in Sweden, Finland and Denmark were, until recently, entirely voluntary.

  In recent years, though, critics have focused on the idea that welfare is bad for the country. The arguments are not new, but they seem to have been given a new impetus by opposition to US President Barack Obama’s controversial healthcare reforms.

  Welfare systems, the critics say, encourage fraud, as people claim benefits that they are not entitled to.[5] Generous benefits, too, encourage people to sponge off the state rather than work, and so fuel resentment among those working hard for meagre wages.

  Worse, the welfare state is said to be psychologically damaging. It not only becomes a ‘nanny state’, in which the government patronisingly interferes in every aspect of people’s lives, from child-rearing to basic safety; it can also create a ‘dependency culture’ in which successive generations of families become incapable of looking after themselves. The use of the word ‘dependency’ is deliberate; it’s a casually insidious way of associating living on welfare benefits with drug addiction.

  The recession has added extra fuel to the critics’ attacks on the welfare state. Now the argument is that with countries deep in debt to pay for the banking crisis, the developed world simply cannot afford its generous welfare provisions. Spending on welfare is not only unaffordable, they say; it is a drag on the economy, discouraging people from seeking work. Remarkably, this argument seems to have won the day in many countries, with media polls of public opinion seemingly in agreement with politicians on the need to cut back.

  And yet this ‘common sense’ argument has no actual foundation in reality. Welfare systems have rarely acted as a brake on a country’s economy. It’s not just that rich countries can afford welfare. In nearly all cases, countries that have introduced a welfare system have experienced dramatic economic growth. After Germany introduced its welfare system in the 1880s, its economy grew rapidly – so rapidly that Britain was shocked to find it had an economic rival for the first time, and right on its doorstep. And in the post-war years, western Europe has experienced a time of unparalleled prosperity. Moreover, the most prosperous countries, such as Sweden and Germany, are those with some of the most generous welfare provision.

  The nervousness of people facing recession makes it clear why this might be. A society in which the poor and the sick and the old are looked after feels at ease with itself. It feels confident and outward-looking. Young people can enter further education with a sense of security about the future, a sense that they will not be left high and dry if it doesn’t work out as they hoped. People can buy houses with the reassurance that the state will be there to catch them if they fall. They can spend money on improving their circumstances confident that if they fall sick they will receive proper medical care. More significantly, perhaps, entrepreneurs can start or expand a business, knowing that if it goes wrong, neither they nor the people they have employed will be out on the street. Without that cushion, many of these decisions – the decisions that are essential for the economic as well as social well-being of society – might seem risky if not reckless.

  The lessons of the 1930s – the lessons of fascism and the worst aspects of communism – taught that a country cannot afford to ignore its poor and disadvantaged. Common humanity means that we should not. In our own personal interest, we want that safety net to be there to catch us should we fall, however comfortable our circumstances are now. That’s what a welfare state should do when it’s working at its best.

  [1] It was also part of the campaign to, in modern parlance, win hearts and minds. Summaries of the report were issued to troops to boost morale. They were also dropped into Germany to let German people know of this promise of a golden future for all if the Allies won. A copy of the Beveridge paper, with a report acknowledging its strengths, was later found in Hitler’s bunker.

  [2] The first elements of the British welfare state date back to the early twentieth century. One spur was the research of Seebohm Rowntree, which showed just how difficult life was for the urban poor in Yo
rk in 1899. A second was the shock that 25 per cent of volunteers trying to enlist for the Boer War that year were unfit for service, and in cities such as Manchester that figure rose to 80 per cent. Determined to put things right, Liberal governments under Herbert Asquith and David Lloyd George introduced free school meals in 1906, a means-tested pension in 1908, labour exchanges in 1909, and the National Insurance Act of 1911 to provide a basic level of health insurance and unemployment benefit. Interestingly, when Rowntree repeated his investigations in 1936, he found that poverty had more than halved, but whereas the main factor in poverty in 1899 was low wages, in 1936 it was unemployment.

  [3] There are three basic kinds of welfare system. Scandinavian countries have a social democratic system that provides universal support based on taxation. Continental European countries have a work-centred system based on insurance contributions. The UK and US systems target only the poorest using means tests. Beveridge’s original intention was that the UK welfare system should be a universal system, with the national insurance payments ensuring that everyone has a stake in the system. It was never put into place as he intended and in the 1980s the Conservative government reduced the insurance element and shifted the system towards targeted, means-tested supplementary benefits. Many experts argue that this is why poverty in Britain has remained stubbornly high. ‘The more universal nature of the continental system,’ Professors Pat Thane and Noel Whiteside say, ‘has ensured that it has deep support across all sections of society: all citizens can be part of the same system, and payments out are at a level that makes it genuinely attractive to the middle-classes.’ The same professors also posit a reason why Britain’s welfare system is like it is: ‘The dominance of the Treasury has played a significant part in differentiating Britain from other European nations in the general course that the evolution of the welfare state has taken.’

  [4] Poverty has not been eliminated by the welfare state. Indeed, a fifth of the UK’s population is today defined as poor, which means their income is less than 60 per cent of the national average. That’s not so much lower than the 1930s, when 30 per cent of people were poor. But what it means to be poor has changed out of all recognition. In the 1930s, it was still defined as someone who could not afford to buy a shopping bag of a few basic items. Now even those considered poor may own their own homes and have items such as TVs and dishwashers.

  [5] Interestingly, headlines in the UK proclaim that a massive £1.5 billion is claimed fraudulently, inspiring government ministers to announce a crackdown while fuelling the public perception that the welfare system is badly flawed. What the headlines often omit is that this £1.5 billion is much less than 1 per cent of the welfare budget, which is about the same percentage as the unidentified loss in any private business.

  #40 The Sail

  The sail is the perhaps the most beautiful of all human technologies. There is no finer way of moving around the world than slipping through the water, wafted along by the wind, using no more energy than is given freely by the atmosphere. Even in rough weather, when one is buffeted by the elements, there is a grandeur about it matched by no other way of travelling.

  For 5,000 years, the sail provided the principal way of getting around the world. It was the driving force of exploration, trade and communications. Without the sail, Columbus could never have crossed the Atlantic, Cook would never have found Australia and Ibn Battuta would never have explored Africa. Without the sail, countless goods from overseas would never have reached us. Without the sail, Europeans would never have colonised America. Maybe all of these things have a downside, but it was the voyagers, not the sail, who were responsible for the damage of colonialism. The day-to-day food of countless millions through the ages was supplied by fishing boats driven by the wind towards the best shoals and back.

  It’s impossible to tell just how long ago sails were first used. Prehistoric boats were made from perishable materials such as wood and reeds. The sails themselves are even more perishable. The oldest fragment of sail is a scrap of linen with a wooden ring from second-century BC Egypt. But there are Minoan pictures of sailing boats dating from 2000 BC, and one on a vase from Naqada in Egypt that dates back to 3100 BC. It seems likely that the Chinese had sails around the same time. It is quite possible, though, that sails date back much further. Cloths such as linen, and later canvas, make the perfect sail material, but native Americans simply used bushes.

  The first sails were probably square rigs – that is, square sails hung from a beam or yard from the mast, across the boat at right angles. These were simple and effective. It’s easy to appreciate how the wind drives the boat along when the boat is travelling ‘downwind’ – that is with the wind behind. The wind simply pushes against the sail and the boat ‘runs’ before it. Because the wind is behind the boat, the boat remains stable, despite the area of sail and the mast on top.

  Although the yard can pivot up to 45° to catch the wind from different angles, the wind still has to be behind the boat. By tacking – taking a zig-zag course – a simple square-rigged boat can make some headway against an oncoming wind – but no closer to the direction of the wind than about 70 degrees. That means square-rigged boats are very much dependent on the direction of the wind. Their speed, too, is limited entirely by the strength of the wind.

  This is why the invention of the fore-and-aft sail in the Middle East around 2,000 years ago was such a huge technological breakthrough. Unlike the simple square rig, which stretches across the boat at right angles, the fore-and-aft sail is set up in line with the boat. Although fore-and-aft sails can be square, the earliest were all triangular ‘lateen’ sails,[1] still seen today in Arab dhows. The top side of the triangle was hung from a yard mounted on the mast and slanting down at an angle from the aft of the boat. The bottom aft corner was left free and secured by ropes.

  Sails like these work in an entirely different way to square sails. With lateens, the sail acts like an aerofoil. When the sail is at a right angle to the wind, the sail bows out. As the air rushes over it, it creates pressure differences either side. Just as these provide lift with an aerofoil, so they draw the sailing boat on. The pressure on the sail tends to tip the boat over sideways, so a keel on the bottom of the boat is essential to reduce the chances of the boat capsizing. But with a lateen sail, a boat can ‘beat’ much closer to the wind – that is, it can sail almost into the wind. Early lateen boats could sail just 40° from the wind direction; some modern yachts can sail less than 20°.

  Lateens were much more manoeuvrable than square rigs, and were not so dependent on wind direction. The way the sails worked also meant that in the hands of a skilled sailor they could actually move faster than the wind. They were not as safe, though, and bigger boats would require a larger, more highly trained crew. So merchant boats often persisted with square rigs for reliability and economy.

  By 1200, many ships had two masts, one with a lateen sail and one with a square sail, which gave them the best of both worlds. On the whole, though, merchants still preferred the square-rig because a big square rig sail could drive a ship with a heavier cargo. Lateens were preferred for small fishing boats, because of their versatility. Then in the fifteenth century, the Portuguese developed a little three-masted lateen-rigged ship called a caravel. The caravel was the fastest, most manoeuvrable ship of the age, and perfect for exploring unknown seas such as the coast of Africa, where sailors would encounter variable winds, strong currents and unknown shoals. All the great Portuguese explorers including Bartolome Diaz and Vasco da Gama used caravels for their voyages of discovery.

  Interestingly, though, when Columbus made his historic voyage across the Atlantic in 1492, he chose to put square sails on the foremast and mainmast of his trio of caravels, and had a lateen only on the mizzenmast (the mast behind the mainmast). He was clearly confident that he was going to find following winds. As it turned out, he was right. He was able to take advantage of the easterly trade winds in the subtropics for the outward journey, then sail back
further north driven by the westerly winds. This became the standard route for sailing boats on the transatlantic journey. But how did he know? Was he just lucky?

  With new routes and new worlds discovered, the merchants followed to open up trade in anything from spices and silks from Southern Asia to tobacco from the Americas. The voyages were long, so merchants wanted big ships to make the journey worthwhile. But to drive big ships, you needed a large area of sail, and it was a much harder task to make lateen sail ships big. Moreover, lateen ships needed a large crew. In the sixteenth century, Venetian maritime statutes required lateen-sailed ‘busses’ of 240 tons to have a crew of 50; a square-sailed ‘cog’ of the same size was allowed a crew of just 20. So, of course, square sails and cheap crews won out over lateens.

  Soon, masts were growing taller, and each carried not just one sail but two, three, four or even five. They had small triangular sails aft and to the fore, but they were essentially square-riggers. The classic was the East Indiaman, which plied the routes between India and Europe between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. The culmination of these square riggers were the glorious ‘clippers’ of the nineteenth century.

  Designed to bring back tea and other low-volume, high-value goods from China to Britain with the utmost possible speed, the clippers were narrow, very streamlined boats with a huge sail area, and only a fairly small cargo space. The American clippers were astonishingly fast for such big ships. They could frequently reach speeds of nearly 20 knots, and sail 400 nautical miles in a day. The record of 465 miles (861 km) in a single day was held by the clipper Champion of the Seas, which achieved this remarkable feat on its maiden voyage in 1854 – a record only finally beaten 130 years later in 1984 by a specialist racing yacht. While Columbus took 66 days to return across the Atlantic, clippers were expected to do it just fourteen days.