Mr. Jordan asks a very important question: What is the relationship between freedom and welfare? In order to answer it he examines three trends in social thought: conservatism, libertarianism, and paternalism.

Conservatism (also known as classical liberalism) is eager to expand individual freedom and identifies undue state interference as the primary threat to this goal. Accordingly, those who are conservatives in this sense would reduce state action to the enforcement of our social obligations. Welfare measures must never undercut individual responsibility to provide for one self and one's family. us, welfare payments must always be so low as to provide only for the bare necessities of life and to offer an incentive to recipients to seek out employment whenever it is available.

Libertarianism goes beyond this "negative" freedom and urges that we need more than just freedom from coercive restraints. We also need self-direction. Libertarianism warns that contemporary social obligations are simply tools for forcing individuals to serve the interests and values of a ruling elite. It encourages rebellion against the state and the institutions that serve it, and stresses the need to develop spontaneous social interaction where individuals are led to fashion a style of life of their own choosing. It cannot conceive of state welfare in any other terms than as a threat to freedom. If individuals are in need of others' assistance, this should come only in the form of a spontaneous giving, informed with a genuine sympathy for distress and suffering.

Paternalism divides citizens into two classes - those who are responsible and those who are not. e irresponsible must be controlled lest they disrupt the social order, and their lives must be supervised because they are unable to run them well on their own. It is proper to respect the freedom of the responsible citizen, and it is foolhardy to tender the same regard to the irresponsible. State

welfare programs ought always to aim at controlling and supervising the irresponsible as much as they strive to relieve human misery.

Mr. Jordan thinks that all three traditions have something worthwhile to say, but they commit errors as well. e conservative tradition rightly insists that the state must be limited in its power, but fails to see that state power is not the only threat to freedom. e absence of coercion is only a necessary condition of freedom; one must also have the opportunity to exercise freedom once it is allowed. Economic want forecloses this opportunity. Freedom requires an end to the slavery of necessity just as much as it demands a stop to coercion.

e libertarian tradition reminds us of the importance of being self-directed; it asks us to recall that there is more to our lives than our social obligations. However. it is naive to suppose that the rebellion against all organizations espoused by the libertarians can by itself expand our freedom. We must have organization if we are ever to eliminate the tyranny of necessity. Not only this, but the poor who have never had the opportunity to develop middle-class talents for self-direction have nothing to sustain them after they have rebelled. Libertarian policy for the poor means cutting them adrift without a compass to find their way or a rudder to put them on the right track were they ever to know it from the start.

Paternalism rightly discerns that we have a duty to help those who cannot help themselves; it errs in supposing that those in poverty and want necessarily fall under this classification. It is crucial to distinguish between being in need and failing to have the capacity to make decisions for oneself. Jordan insists on the importance of paternalism where individuals, because of physical or mental defects or because of immaturity, cannot safely care for themselves and are in need of supervision. But he also insists that this form of paternalism must not be misapplied to those who are poor but nevertheless capable of directing their own lives if only given the chance.

Mr. Jordan is greatly disturbed by the fact that the social work profession in Britain has of late been enlisted in the state's sudden return to the paternalism of the Poor Laws. He would rather have the profession turn to an early tradition of social work where moral equality between worker and client was a rock-bottom conviction. If one cares for the freedom of welfare recipients, there is less need for supervision and more concern for enabling recipients to direct their own lives as they see fit. Mr. Jordan does not see how this can ever come to pass unless welfare is perceived as a right and not a gift. A guaranteed income with few strings attached is, says Jordan, a step in this direction. Recipients of welfare would no longer be forced to face the state as supplicants, and social workers would not be forced to exercise supervisory discretion on behalf of the state's paternalistic impulses toward their clients. Ideally, the social worker should act as a resource person at the disposal of those in need, not as a supervisor. e worker should deal with clients as moral equals, with sympathy and concern, and inform them of what they need to know to confront the state in making demands for what are their rights.

On the way to this conclusion Mr. Jordan discusses, and ably so, difficult philosophical issues, recent findings in psychology and sociology, and provides an interesting account of the development of the English welfare system. e book covers so much that it is not a serious criticism to note that it has left some things out. Nevertheless, I do think that it would have been worthwhile for Mr. Jordan to have considered the issue of "rights" with as much care as he does "freedom," for as one moves through his arguments it becomes clear that his attitude toward welfare hinges as much on a conception of rights as it does on that of freedom. Indeed, it is central to his position that one view the state's responsibility for providing welfare to the needy as a requisite of observing citizens' rights. However, as Jordan himself points out, the three traditions of social thought he has examined fail to consider it "beneficial to provide people with a decent standard of living as a right."(p. 139). But certainly, if one is eager to challenge this assumption, it is necessary to show how it fails to stand up to intelligent analysis. ere is now a growing literature on the issue of rights; let us hope that Mr. Jordan consults it and tells us what he finds in his next book.