Abstract
Since the comfortable mixture of economic growth and welfare state expansion has come to an end the welfare state has been subjected to a crisis discussion. Its integrative capacity and its ability to compromise different class interests have been doubted. It was assumed that the higher status groups will express their anti-welfare sentiments within the political arena, whereas the welfare beneficiaries of the lower status sections of the society might be the defenders of the welfare state. In this regard, it was widely assumed that people will support social institutions if they derive benefits from them. The "beneficial involvement" of social groups was seen as the crucial factor for the public standing of the welfare institutions. Special attention was given to the middle classes: "The idea here is that if the middle classes benefit from programmes, then they will not use their not inconsiderable political skills to obtain more resources for those programmes or to defend them in periods of decline" (Goodin/LeGrand, 1987). This essay sets out a comparative frame which charts the attitudinal stances towards the welfare state in Great Britain and Germany...
