Social Policy and the Separation between Acting and Making

Modern social policies, including cash benefits and public services have emerged to compensate for the loss of solidarity at the local level. While reducing poverty and increasing welfare, these policies have tended to remain technocratic, their democratic legitimacy being contested. This paper examines contemporary Western social policy in the light of Hannah Arendt’s distinction between making and acting. Making is the human condition of worldliness. We live in a world of durables and construct these durables through the process of making. Acting is the human condition of plurality. We live together with others and must therefore agree on the forms of our social life. For Arendt acting and making are strictly separate activities. Therefore, the means-ends schema plays no role in politics, which is about acting together. Thus, social policy is not about reaching a pre-defined outcome in technocratic fashion but about the negotiation and agreement on the forms of our social life.