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The welfare state was not the ultimate goal of world history, nor were its preconditions-industrial society and the nation-state. The fact that we live in a time full of promise but also in a rough transitional period has become common knowledge, not something perceived only by visionaries. In this age of information revolution and global proximity, more and more people are coming to realise that we cannot organise welfare in the way we used to do in the old, industrialised nation-state society. The time has come when we must ask ourselves what welfare might be like after the welfare state.

This book discusses the necessary reform of the existing welfare state, taking the case of Sweden -the most developed and expensive welfare state ever known-as a starting point.

Mauricio Rojas is Vice President of Timbro and Senior Lecturer in Economic History