With the end of the 20th century, Dixon and Scheurell decided it was an opportune time to critically assess what governments have achieved with their plethora of public social welfare policies. While Marxist socialists, democratic socialists, social democrats, and reluctant collectivists were all eager, at various times, to construct their vision of the ideal society, the idea of state welfare was slow to take root. As Dixon and Scheurell point out, at the turn of the century, only a handful of industrializing countries were willing to grapple with the problems of poverty, inequality, and...