Colonialism, Postcolonialism and the Liberal Welfare State

Bhambra, Gurminder K.; Holmwood, John

Abstract

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article addresses the colonial and racial origins of the welfare state with a particular emphasis on the liberal welfare state of the USA and UK. Both are understood in terms of the centrality of the commodified status of labour power expressing a logic of market relations. In contrast, we argue that with a proper understanding of the relations of capitalism and colonialism, the sale of labour power as a commodity already represents a movement away from the commodified form of labour represented by enslavement. European colonialism is integral to the development of welfare states and their forms of inclusion and exclusion which remain racialised through into the twenty-first century.

Citation

Bhambra, G. K., & Holmwood, J. (2018). Colonialism, Postcolonialism and the Liberal Welfare State. New Political Economy, 23(5), 574-587. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2017.1417369

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 5, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jan 5, 2018
• Publication Date: Sep 3, 2018
• Deposit Date: Mar 27, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 6, 2019
• Journal: New Political Economy
• Print ISSN: 1356-3467
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-9923
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 574-587
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2017.1417369
• Keywords: Class, colonialism, dispossession, immigration, settler liberalism, welfare
• Public URL: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/50720
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13563467.2017.1417369
• Copyright Statement: Copyright information regarding this work can be found at the following address: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/end_user_agreement.pdf
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in New Political Economy on 05/01/2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13563467.2017.1417369