SOCIAL VULNERABILITY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE HISTORICAL HERITAGE OF PATERNALISM

Abstract

The ongoing war and its consequences are increasing the public demand for various forms of assistance and social support from the state. In this context, the impact of the historical heritage of paternalism on the social vulnerability of the population of Ukraine is revealed, and directions for supporting modern positive trends in diversifying social vulnerability reduction mechanisms are outlined.

The persistent stereotypes of public consciousness and individual behavior that were formed in Soviet times were based on the features of the centrally planned economic system, where state paternalism was the dominant model of social security. Based on the study of path dependence, risks for society, the state, and the economy were identified, as well as factors of social vulnerability of the population (fundamental and current), which are based on the traditions of state paternalism. The inconsistency of the historically formed tradition of passive expectation and reliance on the state with modern realities and challenges is proven.

The study summarizes the foreign experience of proactive social policy during post-war economic reconstruction. The key features of that experience were: redistribution of social functions between the state and business, positive experience of partnership between the state and corporations, development of the economy of social partnership relations, institutionalization of social functions of the state, various forms of economic self-organization of the population for post-war recovery, support for producers, not consumers.

Directions for supporting modern positive trends in diversifying mechanisms for reducing the social vulnerability of the population are proposed, in particular: development of social responsibility of business, spread of sharing economy as a form of joint use of limited resources, community participation in social service provision, formation of commercial social services, social volunteering and charity. The need to abandon the established redistributive practices of social dependency to reduce social vulnerability is emphasized, mechanisms for redistributing social functions between the state and business are proposed, and the main functions of the state for restructuring the social protection system are identified.