The Welfare Society: A Sabotaged Ideal

Rebel exhibition sets up in the Great Court of the British Museum. Photo by Amy Scaife

The concept of a welfare society has been systematically undermined. In Europe, it is still more widely understood than in, for instance, the United States, where the term typically refers to limited, often temporary assistance provided by the state or civil society to those in need. In the American context, it is often framed as charity—a reactive and minimal gesture.

In contrast, the European understanding—rooted in the original English formulation—envisions something far more ambitious: a socially responsible state committed to ensuring a basic standard of welfare for all citizens as a long-term strategic and ethical priority. Nowhere has this vision been more clearly realized than in the Scandinavian countries, where the welfare society emerged as a humanist model, free of ideological baggage.

However, the situation has changed. The encouragement of immigration—ostensibly in the name of openness—has, in practice, deepened the neoliberal disorder of what might be called post-ideological stealth totalitarianism. This benefits the corporate world, not society at large. As a result, the social fabric weakens, and the welfare ideal begins to drown in rising tides of insecurity, fear, and extreme nationalism.

Despite unprecedented wealth and technological progress, Western societies are becoming increasingly anxious and fragmented. The gap between a shrinking elite of the obscenely rich and the growing mass of the poor—or those barely getting by—continues to widen at an alarming pace.

As history has shown, especially through the tragedies of the two World Wars, such pervasive insecurity and fear can easily be manipulated into dangerous ideologies. These often take the form of appeals to “historical rights,” nationalism, and racial or cultural superiority. Such exclusionary ideas harden into identitarianism: a worldview in which difference is no longer seen as enrichment, but as threat. This stands in direct opposition to what diversity has meant in peaceful, prosperous times—namely, joy, complexity, and shared humanity.

Cultural institutions, especially museums, are particularly vulnerable in such a climate. Without a strong institutional framework or clear professional identity, they are easy targets for political instrumentalization—especially during wartime or periods of social tension. A small, grim consolation is that museums are not alone; other noble professions, such as journalism, face similar precariousness and pressure.

Head on to the Vault to read my full article "The Welfare Society and Public Memory" where I examine the fate of memory in a world hurtling toward oblivion—or reinvention.