SOCIAL SECURITY. — This is the formulation of a series of plans and measures intended to maintain social peace and the common welfare. The meanings of the term vary according to its different applications. In the new formulation of the problem, the concept may be said to have developed in the Anglo-Saxon countries after the last great war, as a result of the alarms continually provoked by fluctuations in the market and by the restlessness of economic and political life, now generally attributed to the liberal regime of competition.
I. THE FOUR FREEDOMS AND THE BEVERIDGE PLAN
The first solemn declaration to invoke them was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s message to the American Congress (6 January 1941), in which the so-called four fundamental freedoms of man (Atlantic freedoms) were proclaimed, including freedom from want and freedom from fear.This was followed by a broad movement of social and political studies and initiatives which, converging with the new economic views (v. KEYNES), culminated in England in 1944, after the end of the war, in the famous Beveridge Plan for full employment and social assistance from the cradle to the grave: the first example of an economic plan inspired by the concept of the individual’s necessary liberation from the gravest concerns of an economic nature, against which the individual today is practically defenceless.
In Italy, by contrast, s. s. refers to the narrower field of social welfare and assistance for wage and salaried workers and for the unemployed. In fact, however, s. s. exists not only for individuals, but also for enterprises and nations: individuals, businesses, and peoples are, in fact, equally and jointly exposed to serious blows and continual risks, which originate in the general economic and political imbalance and in the periodic crises that destroy peace, wealth, and opportunities for work. Individuals and businesses, beset by unemployment and financial ruin, turn to the State to be defended, protected, supported, and restored: States respond with social welfare measures and insurance on an ever broader basis, with increasingly general and comprehensive assistance, with measures protecting industries and with financing, and finally with economic plans directed especially toward full employment.
(from Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, 1 [1931], p. 80, fig. 2)
SICLO - Verso e recto di un mezzo s.
II. THE MARSHALL PLAN
In the supranational sphere, the North American initiative of the E.R.P. (or Marshall Plan) for European reconstruction is well known; before its expiration (10 October 1951), it was replaced by the M.S.A. (Mutual Security Agency), whose activity comprises four branches: military aid for common defense; economic aid for an adequate system of mutual security; the ECA organization for the countries of Southeast Asia; and measures relating to Truman’s Fourth Point on the development of depressed areas on all continents.Not rigidly bound to fixed schemes, this activity neither replaces the OEEC nor the Schuman Plan (v. UNIONE EUROPEA) nor the European Agricultural Pool; rather, following criteria of expediency, it responds to the emergence in the assisted countries of financial, economic, and social needs connected with the establishment of mutual security, reconciling military requirements with social ones.
The M.S.A. also aims to develop in Europe a unified economy, greater productivity, and a broader liberalization of trade; finally, by constituting the economic instrument of the Atlantic Pact, it assumes the initiative for any necessary emergency measures. In this sense, the concept of social security merges with that of collective security and seeks to correct the common defect in the formulation of all social-security plans: namely, that they remedy only the last perceptible manifestations of global disequilibrium, without attempting to modify its general causes. These consist chiefly in the excessively difficult and burdensome conditions imposed on saving, the limited mobility of capital, goods, and workers, the instability of currency values, and the artificial division of the single world economy into so many different and rival national economic policies.
The ingenious generosity of social-security plans is, however, matched by their extremely high social cost, generally disproportionate to the results they can achieve; consequently, they prove prohibitive in the poorest countries, which have the greatest need of them. Manifestations of crisis and disorientation therefore continued to arise from the undisturbed operation of the primary causes, and a dangerous moral upheaval became intertwined with them, making them more serious. This upheaval stemmed from the conviction that social security is a primordial and universal right of all in relation to the States, and that individuals and businesses may demand guarantees and well-being from the State without any effective contribution of intelligence, labor, and loyalty on their part.
From the standpoint of economic technique directed toward full employment, there is a difference between Beveridge and Keynes: the former suggests that the State intervene directly to make up the difference between saving and investment by socializing consumption, whereas the latter calls upon the State to pursue a policy of low interest in private financing and to contribute to it through taxation, measured inflationary maneuvers, and the gradual socialization of production. Both systems restrict and debase freedom of initiative, that is, the true and irreplaceable driving force of productive activity; consequently, they succeed in obtaining a production that is apparently more orderly but generally inferior in quality and efficiency. Saving too, the foundation and soul of economic life, is thereby debased and replaced by burdensome taxation. The policy of full employment nevertheless appears, so far, to be the only effective diversion in the controversy between economic freedom and communism; but, in order to respond fully to practical needs, as well as to charity, justice, and reasonableness, it ought to be based on solutions in applied economics concerning saving, credit, and exchange that are universally valid and universally acceptable, outside and above every political policy.
III. THE ECONOMIC COUNCIL OF THE U.N. — The U.N. deals with s. s. through one of its organs: the Economic Council, composed of 18 members elected for three years, with the aim of providing for international economic stability and humanitarian and social-welfare initiatives: noble aims, which nevertheless do not aspire to resolve essential problems. Indeed, they expect nothing from the technical progress of applied economics, nor do they suggest removing economic value and significance from the rigid political boundaries
of territorial sovereignties. A more marked attempt along these lines is found in the Schuman Plan, which represents a victory for the European Union (v.), characterized by the progressive reduction of national sovereignties.