W.H.ベヴァリッジ(1879-1963) は失業問題と社会保障に関して様々な著作を刊行した、イギリス経済政策・社会政策の近代化における重要人物です。いわゆる「ベヴァリッジ報告」は1942年に刊行され、全ての労働年齢にある人々が社会保険負担金を支払い、その代わりに病人、失業者、退職者、未亡人に給付金が払われる、ということを提案したものでした。この主張は広く受け入れられ、ベヴァリッジは、医療や年金といった労働者のコストを公会計に移すだけでなく、より健康で、豊かで、生産力のある労働者を生み出すという福祉制度が、戦後のイギリスの産業競争力を高めると論じました。
本著作集は、ベヴァレッジの著作の中でも著名な『自由社会における完全雇用』(Full Employment in a Free Society)から、あまり知られていない著作までを幅広く復刻しています。本書を経済学、経済思想史、社会福祉の歴史等に関心を持つ方にお薦めいたします。

William Beveridge (1879-1963) was a key figure in the modernization of British economic and social policy who published widely on unemployment and social security. Among his most notable works and reprinted in this set are, Full Employment in a Free Society (1944), and Pillars of Security (1943). Beveridge's Report on social insurance was published in 1942. It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge included as one of three fundamental assumptions the fact that there would be a National Health Service of some sort.

Beveridge's arguments were widely accepted. He argued that welfare institutions would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions onto the public account but also by producing healthier, wealthier and more productive workers. Beveridge saw full employment as the pivot of the social welfare programme he expressed in the 1942 report.

As well as making available some of Beveridge's key, and in some case, lesser known works, this set includes as its final volume an indispensable overview of Beveridge and his prolific work.