Towards the Global Social Policy

Abstract

The article is devoted to the present condition and prospects of social policy in the XX century. What is the effect of the globalization of economy on social policy? Is the curtailment of the Welfare State in developed countries a consequence of strengthening the globalization processes? Social policy has considerably evolved during the last two centuries. Rationalistic grounds of the Welfare State can be found in the most important documents of the Age of Enlightenment: in «Public Agreement» of J.-J. Russo, Declaration of human rights, Bill of rights. Economic transformations of the industrial epoch stipulated the creation of social policy as a direction of internal policy of the state. During two centuries social policy coped with the tasks of stabilization. Nowadays social problems went beyond the bounds of a single state. The preservation of social stability of a single economically developed country is not comparable with the danger of international terrorism, aggravation of antagonisms between the wealth and the poverty in the majority of the countries. The interest is shifting from the sphere of activities of a single state to the activities of the world community - to the world social policy.