An End to Poverty?: A Historical Debate

In the 1790s, scientific progress, the promise of an international economy, and the revolutions in France and the United States inspired political thinkers such as Thomas Paine and Antoine-Nicolas Condorcet to argue that all citizens should be protected against the hazards of economic insecurity. In An End to Poverty?, Gareth Stedman Jones revisits this founding moment in the history of social democracy and examines how it was derailed by conservative as well as leftist thinkers. Tracing the historical evolution of debates concerning poverty, Stedman Jones makes the case that contemporary social democracy should revive this important, but forgotten strain of progressive thought. He also clearly shows how current discussions about economic issues-downsizing, globalization, and financial regulation-were shaped by the ideological conflicts of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.