The Class Struggle and Welfare: Social Policy under Capitalism
David Matthews, Monthly Review Press, £23.99

A FULL Marx feature in this paper examined the “social wage” — the collective provision of public goods and services ranging from education and healthcare through public libraries, parks and playing fields, public toilets, roads and pavements, to state regulation of food standards and environmental quality.  

All are funded in the last resort, through the value created by labour — via income taxes, VAT on the goods you buy, local rates and (yes, even) taxes on profits. Most hardly existed in Marx’s day, except perhaps through charitably funded schools and hospitals — and workhouses.  

David Matthews takes the analysis forward and focuses on welfare and specifically on the British “welfare state” that emerged following WWII and which from 1979 has been increasingly under attack. Most readers will have some knowledge of issues in at least one of these chapters, but their assembly in one text, contextualised within a Marxist framework, is hugely valuable.