Myten om velferdsstaten

Title: The Myth of the Welfare State. Summary: This article takes a closer look at the legacy and relevancy of The Myth of the Welfare State. The anthology was received with great attention and debate when its first editions appeared in the early 1970s. The article examines the anthology’s individual contributions (primarily from the 1973 edition), placing them within both an historical context and more contemporary discussions about “public sociology”. The article goes on to assess the anthology’s contributions against the backdrop of one main guiding question: do the anthology’s critiques of welfare myths still have relevancy for current welfare research and contemporary discussions about the welfare state? Lower levels of poverty during the 1970s (together with little recognition of poverty as a problem at that time compared to today) weakens somewhat, the article argues, the anthology’s relevance to our contemporary understanding of poverty in Norway. Poverty continues, however, to exist as a social problem today, although Norway’s poverty levels are low compared to many other countries in the world. The article identifies common themes in contemporary Norwegian poverty debates and topics raised in the anthology in the early 1970s. The article concludes that many of the topics and discussions raised in The Myth of the Welfare State are still visible in, and relevant to, contemporary discussions on the nature of the welfare state.