The Social Citizenship Tradition in Anglo-American Thought

251 Pages·2013·1.82 MB·English

The Social Citizenship Tradition in Anglo-American Thought

by

Constance MacRae-Buchanan

A thesis submitted in conformity with the
requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Graduate Department of Political Science
University of Toronto

© Copyright by Constance MacRae-Buchanan 2013
The Social Citizenship Tradition in Anglo-American Thought
Constance MacRae-Buchanan, PhD 2013
Graduate Department of Political Science
University of Toronto
Abstract
The right to belong and participate in some form of political community is the most
fundamental social right there is. This dissertation argues that social rights have not been
understood broadly enough, that there has not been enough attention paid to their historical roots,
and that they must not be viewed as being simply passive welfare rights. Rather, they must be
seen in their historical context, and they must be seen for what they are: a much larger and more
substantive phenomenon than what liberal theory has projected: both theoretically and
empirically. I am calling this body of discourse “the social citizenship tradition.” This
dissertation hopes to show that there was more than one definition of social citizenship
historically and that social rights are certainly not “new.” In surveying a vast literature in
Britain, the United States, and Canada, it points to places where alternative social rights claims
have entered politics and society. By looking at writings from these three countries over three
centuries, the evidence points to some similarities as well as differences in how scholars
approached questions of economic and social rights. In particular, similar arguments over labour
and property figured prominently in all three countries. The contextual ground of right was
different in each country but the voice of social action was similar. The objective here is to
reunite this common tradition of social citizenship with its past. It is because of classical
liberalism that social right has lost focus and power, and a whole tradition of political thinking
has been lost.This tradition has been narrowed to the point that it might be unrecognizable to the
more radical forces, those who also fought for it, in the American, Canadian and British pasts.
ii
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my thesis committee for excellent supervision and guidance during
the course of writing this dissertation. In particular, David A. Wolfe (Supervisor), Joseph H.
Carens, and Ronald A. Manzer. I would also like to thank the internal examiner Robert C.
Vipond and the external examiner Professor Ronalda Murphy. This thesis could not have been
written without the sustained intellectual and emotional support of Ruthanne Wrobel who read
every word of many versions and whose suggestions improved the quality of the overall product.
Other important sources of support were, in alphabetical order, Mary Anne Appleby, Benjamin
Buchanan, Daniel Buchanan, Hormoz Khakpour, Patty MacRae, Mary McIlroy. This thesis is
dedicated to the memory of my parents, Charles and Elizabeth MacRae.

iii
Table of Contents
Page
Chapter 1: Uncovering Social Citizenship in Anglo-American Thought 1
Chapter 2: United Kingdom: Loss of the Commons 51
Chapter 3: United States: Producerism, Philanthropy and the Private Welfare State 93
Chapter 4: Canada: The Organic Community 134
Chapter 5: Whither Social Rights? 188

iv
List of Figures
Page
Figure 1: Three Elements of Citizenship in T.H. Marshall 3
Figure 2: Concepts of Social Rights in T.H. Marshall 79
Figure 3: The Two-Tier Distinction of Rights in American Writings 117
Figure 4: Communal Expressions of Social Rights in Canadian Writings 136
Figure 5: Ideological Variations in Anglo-American Thought 191

v
Appendices
Page
Appendix 1: Text of the first Chartist petition, 1839 228
Appendix 2: The Four Freedoms Speech 230
Appendix 3: The Social Rights Index 232
Appendix 4: Selected Highlights from the History of Social Rights 234
Select Bibliography 240

vi
Chapter One – Uncovering Social Citizenship in Anglo-American Thought

“Politics is the science which teaches the people of a nation to care for each other.”
William Lyon Mackenzie (1795-1861)

1.1 Some General Thoughts on Social Citizenship and Social Rights
The right to belong and participate in some form of political community is the most
fundamental social right there is. This dissertation argues that social rights have not been
understood broadly enough, that there has not been enough attention paid to their historical roots,
and that they must not be viewed as being simply passive welfare rights. Rather, they must be
seen in their historical context, and they must be seen for what they are: a much larger and more
substantive phenomenon than what liberal theory has projected: both theoretically and
empirically. I am calling this body of discourse “the social citizenship tradition.” This
dissertation hopes to show that there was more than one definition of social citizenship
historically and that social rights are certainly not “new.” In surveying a vast literature in
Britain, the United States, and Canada, it points to places where alternative social rights claims
have entered politics and society.
This dissertation on the social citizenship tradition in Anglo-American thought is an
important undertaking for many reasons. There is tremendous ignorance when it comes to
understanding social rights historically. It is true that many government programs embodying
social rights in their modern form, such as old age security and pensions, workers’
compensation, unemployment insurance, mothers’ allowances, medical care etc. were mainly put
in place in the twentieth century,1 particularly after the first and second World Wars.2 This point
is not being disputed, and is highly significant: the social legislation of the twentieth century in
all industrialized countries is a considerable achievement. What is being questioned is the way in
which the concept and content of social citizenship is presented in the literature, the media and
public discourse as conceptually and historically “new” and specifically new to the twentieth
century. For example, the Canadian Welfare Council said in 1969: “There is a growing interest
in human rights; and the concept of social rights as distinct from civil and political rights is
emerging.”3 Similarly, in 1991, The Globe and Mail writes: “A whole new brand of rights –
social rights – is expected to be a big part of the national unity debate in the fall.”4
This study examines social citizenship in Canada and elsewhere and looks at its early
forms and expressions and alternative ways to conceive it. Any work in the area of social
citizenship must begin with the writings of Thomas H. Marshall. Marshall delivered his theory
on citizenship and social class in the form of two lectures at Cambridge University in 1949.5
Marshall posited that citizenship rights have developed historically along a continuum, from
first, the recognition of legal or civil rights in the eighteenth century, to second, the granting of
political rights beginning in the nineteenth century, and then, finally, to the recognition of social
and economic rights in the twentieth century. A substantial section of this thesis discusses

1 A chronology of important dates in twentieth century social welfare legislation can be found in Andrew Armitage,
Social Welfare in Canada: Ideals and Realities (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975), Appendix II, “Canadian
Social Welfare (1900-1974): Chronology.”

2 In Britain, major liberal reforms took place in the years between 1906 and 1914, and in Germany major reforms
took place during Bismarck’s regime.

3 Canadian Welfare Council, Social Policies for Canada Part I (1969), 1.

4 Globe and Mail. September 10, 1991.

5 T.H. Marshall, “Citizenship and Social Class” (1950) in idem, Sociology at the Crossroads and Other Essays
(London: Heinemann, 1963), 67-127.

2
Marshall’s analysis of social citizenship, and reference to his work is frequently made due to its
importance in the literature. Marshall’s work not only was important in itself: it also stimulated
a tremendous amount of work in social and political theory. This has led to both the extension
and refutation of his ideas in many profitable ways. Three distinct elements of citizenship, as
outlined by Marshall in 1950, appear in the chart below.
Figure 1 Three Elements of Citizenship in T.H. Marshall
Civil Political Social

1700s – Revolutions 1800s – Reform Acts 1900s – Modern State

Individual freedom as a Participation in politics as Life as a “civilised being”
person + citizen voter or legislator according to social
standards a

Civil rights – freedom of Political rights – struggle Access to “a modicum of
speech, thought, religion to win + exercise these economic welfare and
rights security” b

Right to acquire + protect Right to engage in public Right to receive social
property, sign contracts life, debate issues, benefits – health care,
influence decisions housing, schooling

Right to justice upheld by Rights gradually extended Provided through public
common law + courts from elites to lower education + social
classes services

Independent, private, National consciousness, Dependent, passive
economic actors patriotic citizens recipients of welfare
benefits

a T. H. Marshall, “Citizenship and Social Class,” 74.
b Ibid.

In some ways, Marshall’s entire approach obscures social rights as they developed
historically. First and foremost, the tripartite classification between different types of right is a
contrivance. The emphasis on social legislation and social rights as a product of the twentieth
3
century in Marshall’s account obscures the fact that this legislation had very deep roots, as he
acknowledges, but insufficiently; that there were protracted struggles for even more radical
forms of social rights in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than there ever were in the
twentieth; and finally, that the division between rights is arbitrary which raises questions about
his general narrative. The tripartite classification also does not see that by the early to mid-
nineteenth century, political right itself was considered to be a social right, or a type of social
right, and that the struggles for the franchise were intimately bound up with popular efforts to
resolve “the social question.” The first and most obvious distortion then, and one that Marshall
contributes to, is the idea that social rights are “new.” In some cases, it is said, they originated
within the last few decades of the twentieth century.6 Indeed, what is required is a definition of
rights that does not make a distinction between civil, political and social rights. At least not in
the way Marshall did. His classification of rights too easily sanctions the status quo and prevents
critical analysis.
So ambiguities and contradictions are widely evident within Marshall and other liberal
thinkers. For this reason, this thesis argues that liberalism, even the “good” liberalism of
Marshall and others, is not the most appropriate paradigm to understand social citizenship.7 This
is not to say that the ideas in Marshall should be discarded. In rejecting much of classical

6 For example, according to William H. Simon, Charles Reich’s article “The New Property” contributed to the view
that “welfare benefits were not regarded as rights prior to the 1960s.” The argument was that welfare benefits “were
regarded as gratuities to be dispensed with administrative whim.” Simon, however, traces the idea of a right to
assistance back to 1945 with the publication of Charlotte Towle’s Common Human Needs: An Interpretation for
Staff in Public Assistance Agencies, and then as far back as the 1910s and 1920s in America. See his “The Invention
and Reinvention of Welfare Rights,” Maryland Law Review, Vol. 44, Nos. 1, 1-37. But, in some ways, this also
seems too recent given the radical literature of the American Populists in the last decades of the nineteenth century
who … spoke about “an inclusive entitlement to labor (and, to be inferred, a political economy organized to provide
work for all who were willing).” See Norman Pollack, The Just Polity: Populism, Law, and Human Welfare
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 147.

7 Liberalism is not the right framework to understand social rights because social rights have not been sufficiently
understood in the liberal literature. The concept of social rights as it was developed historically has been diminished,
obscured, and depoliticized by the liberal tradition.

4