From human capital to human capabilities. A broader normative foundation for the social investment perspective in Europe

The social investment perspective has recently been defined as a new perspective for social policies in Europe. In a communication (2013),^[1] the European Commission urges the Member States to develop a social investment strategy defined as a third – new ‑ ‘function’ that welfare systems have to fulfil to achieve their objective, the other functions being ‘social protection’ and ‘stabilisation of the economy’.

In this report, we will first briefly present how the main objectives of the ‘social investment’ perspective were elaborated, as a response to the shortcomings of neo-liberalism, by social policy experts in the begin­ning of the 21st century (1). Secondly, we will analyse the attempt made by the European Commission to translate this notion into European public policies (2). We will thirdly show that the European social invest­ment strategy can be summarised by the principle that, as Leibetseder (Leibetseder, 2016) puts it: ‘social policy expenditure should be at least partially channelled towards investment into people’s capacities’. If the social investment perspective is to be the new paradigm for social policy in Europe, it cannot avoid a com­prehensive discussion of what a ‘capacity’ is and in what ‘capacities’ European states should invest.

We will make the proposal that, if European countries aim at developing a normatively robust new model for social policy based on the SI perspective, it could be interesting to re-conceptualise what a capacity is, drawing from the capability approach (CA) to development proposed by Amartya Sen (3). As an important consequence, we propose a new understanding of human rights as goals of the economic and political integra­tion of Europe (4). Finally, this will lead us to discuss the relationship that social policy instruments should entertain with the market. Against a market-driven-only approach to social investment, we will argue that a normatively robust perspective ‑ based upon moral concerns for positive liberty rather than sheer negative freedoms and efficiency ‑ needs an all-encompassing view on the kind of institutional arrangement to which social policy measures should be anchored (5).

[1]   COM(2013)83 Final, Towards Social Investment for Growth and Cohesion - including implementing the European Social Fund 2014-2020. Brussels: European Commission, 20 February 2013.