For too long the collective struggles of the oppressed over welfare provision and welfare settlement have been ignored, yet such struggles punctuate recent British history. By presenting a series of case-studies of episodes of collective action from the field of social policy and social welfare, Class Struggle and Welfare aims to rediscover this 'hidden history'.
Organised chronologically, the book covers some of the most important welfare struggles from the early nineteenth century, some of the issues covered are:
*the growth of capitalism
*the development of the poor laws and the anti-poor law movement
*working class self-help welfare in the nineteenth century
*rent strikes on the Clyde in 1920s
*the squatters movement in the 1950s
*the struggle for abortion rights
*an analysis of the urban riots in the 1980s
*the great poll tax rebellion.

Michael Lavalette is Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Liverpool and Gerry Mooney is Staff Tutor in the Social Sciences with the Open University in Scotland

Chapter 1 Introduction, Michale Lavalette, Gerry Mooney; Chapter 2 Class Struggle and the English Poor Laws, Mark O'Brien; Chapter 3 Class Struggle, Self-Help and Popular Welfare, Chris Jones, Tony Novak; Chapter 4 Class Struggle and the Origins of State Welfare Reform, John Charlton; Chapter 5 'The Clyde Rent War!', Seán Damer; Chapter 6 The Making of a Poor People's Movement, Alan Johnson; Chapter 7 The 'Two Souls of Socialism', Laura Penketh, Alan Pratt; Chapter 8 Housing and Class Struggles in Post-War Glasgow, Charlie Johnstone; Chapter 9 The Struggle for Abortion Rights, Sue Clegg, Rita Gough; Chapter 10 Riots and Urban Unrest in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s, Rumy Hasan; Chapter 11 'No Poll Tax Here!', Michael Lavalette, Gerry Mooney; Chapter 12 Identity Politics or Class Struggle?, Iain Ferguson;