As governments exerted greater control, people got more state benefits from their taxes, and more rights, such as voting, which engendered a feeling of ownership over the state. It became their nation.
That has had an impact, but those kinds of debates don't really get framed as like a challenge to the existing welfare state, but more like tweaking the details.
In fact, the architect of our national accounting system, Simon Kuznets, in the 1930s, said that, " A nation's welfare can scarcely be inferred from their national income."
In Belgium, immigrants who lose jobs can receive almost two-thirds of their most recent wage in state benefits, which must make the hunt for a new job less urgent.
In order to qualify for the services of the welfare state, you need a personal identification number. And this is getting increasingly difficult to obtain.
Since the emergence of the welfare state, adults who want to work have generally found themselves in one of two positions: earning a wage from their job or receiving unemployment benefits.
The Liberal governments under Campbell-Bannerman and Herbert Asquith embarked on a series of reforms which increased state support for the sick and elderly and laid the foundations for the welfare state.