What criteria should we use to judge the welfare state; the institution, whose most prominent features in the U.S. are public education, Social Security, income support, poverty relief, Medicare and Medicaid?

To meet its overarching goal of advancing the common good through the provision of positive freedom and second generation rights, the welfare state aims to reduce and prevent social suffering and strive towards a more just and efficient allocation of resources. The market is limited in its ability to perpetuate freedom. The libertarian view that the market enhances liberty by resting all decision making power within the hands of private individuals is much too simplistic. Freedom is greatly determined by the number of available opportunities and best alternatives. The market itself, barring externalities, is only weakly efficient in providing the full spectrum of freedom (Sen, 1993). Life is the most essential requirement for liberty, as we cannot take advantage of any opportunity, make any decision or experience anything we have reason and ability to value, without it. The reduction of mortality is, therefore, among the most major goals of the welfare state (Sen, 1998). Another basic requirement for liberty and equity is the absence of poverty. As the English essayist Samuel Johnson noted, "poverty is the great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult" (Johnson as cited in Barr, 2004, p. 213). Least, but not last, social justice is imperative to the provision of second generation rights and the perpetuation of the common good; it is an essential requirement for the creation of any civil society (See Sachs & Santarius, 2007, pp. 1-32). For these reasons, one should determine the success or failure of the modern welfare state, and hence its desirability, by examining its ability to reduce poverty, inequality, mortality and thus injustice and inefficiency.

While mortality is rather easy to define, the same is not the case for poverty and much less for injustice. Much of the controversy regarding the definition of poverty has concentrated on whether or not to measure it in relative or absolute terms. As Amartya Sen (1983) explained, "there are... great uncertainties about the appropriate way of conceptualizing poverty in the richer countries... Should the focus be on ‘absolute' poverty or ‘relative' poverty?" (p. 153). I, therefore, suggest to include studies using both relative and absolute measures of poverty. The poverty thresholds used in these studies should be congruent with those commonly used by widely respected institutions, such as the United Nations Human Development Program (UNDP).

 As noted above, the definition of social justice is complicated and heavily influenced by ideology. Rawls stipulated that resources should be distributed in such a manner as to maximize benefit for the least advantaged members of society. Any inequality can only be justified if it is beneficial to the weakest members of society (Rawls in Barr, 2004, pp. 47-50). According to a perhaps more familiar conception of social justice by Miller, social justice consists of three components: rights, deserts and needs. The first consists of largely of negative first-generation rights, such as equality before the law and freedom of speech. The second consists of "the recognition of each person's action and qualities," which implies proportional compensation for one's contributions to society. Any judgment on what constitutes due recognition for a given action or quality will inevitably be made relative to other members of society (e.g. it is not possible to determine whether or not my income constitutes a just reward without comparing it to that of others). The third component of justice consists of "the prerequisites for fulfilling individual plans in life" (Barr, 2004, pp. 50-51). The needs component underlines the close, complex relationship between social justice and positive freedom. The former cannot exist without the latter, nor can the latter exist without the former. Different ideologies emphasize different elements of social justice. Libertarians emphasize the deserts element, while democratic socialists emphasize the needs element. Modern liberals approach of attempt to emphasize all three as equally as possible (Barr, 2004, pp. 51-60).

References:

• Barr, N. (2004). Economics of the welfare state. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Sachs, W. & Santarius, T. (2007). Justice for realists. In Fair future: Resource conflicts, security & global justice. New York: Zed Books, pp. 1-32. 
• Sen, A. (1983). Poor, relatively speaking. Oxford Economic Papers, 35(2), 153-169. Retrieved March 16, 2008 from JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0030-7653%28198307%292%3A35%3A2%3C153%3APRS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1
• Sen, A. (1993). Markets and freedom: Achievements and limitations of the market mechanism in promoting individual freedoms. Oxford Economic Papers, 45(4), 519-541. Retrieved March 28, 2008 from JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0030-7653%28199310%292%3A45%3A4%3C519%3AMAFAAL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H
• Sen, A. (January 1998). Mortality as an indicator of economic success and failure. The Economic Journal, 108(446), 1-25. Retrieved March 29, 2008 from JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0013-0133%28199801%29108%3A446%3C1%3AMAAIOE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7