The Unexceptional U.S. Welfare State: Class Analysis or State Autonomy?

A large body of historical evidence shows that welfare states originate in fear-class fear, and this is no less true of the United States than Western Europe. Drawing on the history of the American labor movement, populism, and progressivism, this paper questions the theory of American "exceptionalism'' as well as Theda Skocpol's argument that the autonomy of capitalist states relegates Marxist theories of the state to secondary importance. The expansion and contraction of welfare states are best understood in terms of class conflict, which moves Marxism from the sidelines to the center of efforts to explain capitalist states.