The Beveridge Report

Not since the publication of Keynes's Economic Consequences of the Peace has any work by an economist attracted such World-wide interest, both professional and popular, as has the Beveridge Report. At first sight such wide acclaim is difficult to explain, for social insurance has not in the past notably raised the emotional temperature of the general population or enlisted the active intellectual interests of any large number of economists. Certainly the interest which the Report has aroused cannot be attributed to the readability of the document. Undoubtedly the main reason for the popularity of the Report must be sought in the temper of the times. It is the first concrete evidence that the generalizations about the better post-war world have content behind them.