Social and Political Theory of Liberalism, Socialism, and the Social State

The idea behind the creation of the social state has its roots in the concept of welfare (pronia in Greek) . However, the creation of integral, institutionalized and based on legislation state intervention in Europe can be traced to the need to address social problems during the 19th century. Furthermore, the intervention manner was based on the theoretical approaches and the political/ideological principles of governance of economic activity models, the correlation of power between social groups and interest groups, but also on the need for social balance and development. Social movements and the intellectual political theories of liberalism and socialism played a primary role in state intervention. Over time and as national and global conditions changed, the prevalent ideological political systems would also change; specific approaches linking society with the market and production prevailed, thus influencing the design of the applied social state policies. Under those conditions the so-called pluralistic forms of the social state emerged bearing a different structure and content depending on the social, political and ideological orientation of each country.