HERE AND NOW
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struggle and human will which have in fact achieved some of the
goals that were supposed to be unattainable short of apocalypse.
II. Some Other Models
The model of the welfare state I have been using here is of
course an extrapolation from the complexities of history, and even if
we are to content ourselves with it we must acknowledge the presence
in our society of elements it cannot account for and which, indeed,
conflict with it. Even the traditional laissez-faire model of capitalism,
which by common consent is now obsolete, retains some importance.
There are aspects of the society - certain segments of the economy,
certain sectors of the country, certain strands of our ideological folk–
lore - in regard to which the traditional model of capitalism retains
much relevance, so that in discussing the welfare state, or welfare
capitalism, one must bear in mind the earlier historical form out of
which it emerged. More immediately, however, there are several
models which should be looked at, not merely or even so much as
competitors but rather as supplements, necessary complications, to the
welfare state model.
The Garrison State.
The war economy is like a parallel structure,
a double aorta, of the welfare state, at some points reinforcing it
through an economic largesse which a reactionary Congress might not
otherwise be willing to allow, and at other points crippling it through
sociopolitical aggrandizement such as we can observe at this very
moment. In consequence, we can never be free of the haunting possi–
bility that if our military expenditure were radically cut there would
follow a collapse or a very severe crisis in the welfare state. Nor can
we be sure that gradually the military arrangement will not over–
whelm and consume welfare. But these, I would stress, are matters of
political decision and thereby of social struggle; they will be settled
not through some mysterious economic automatism but through the
encounter of opposing classes and groups.
The Mass Society.
This theory proposes a model of society in
which traditional class distinctions have become blurred and in which
there occurs a steady drift toward a bureaucratic and prosperous
authoritarianism, with a population grown atomized, "primary" social
groups disintegrated and traditional loyalties and associations become
