„The Welfare State is an Inherent Paradox“
As part of the lecture series "Ethical and Religious Foundations of the Welfare State," Prof. Dr. Reiner Anselm (LMU Munich) explored, on 9 December 2025, the conflict inherent in the desire to lead a decent life in freedom and the restrictions required by the welfare state. In his lecture, he focused on the basic assumptions and paradoxes in the conception of the modern welfare state, with particular, but not exclusive, consideration of the Protestant-Lutheran perspective. Serving as a starting point is the insight that freedom cannot be understood solely as the absence of coercion, but that it requires real prerequisites: material security, education, health care and social participation. The welfare state thus fulfils a genuinely ethical task by creating conditions under which individual freedom can actually be lived. At the same time, this promise of freedom creates an "inherent paradox": in order to enable freedom, the state must intervene in a regulatory manner – and in doing so always runs the risk of curtailing the very freedom it seeks to protect.
Prof. Anselm therefore describes the welfare state as a structure in permanent tension. It protects freedom, but determines which freedoms are worthy of protection; it guarantees participation, but also standardises living conditions and lifestyles. Welfare state action is therefore never neutral, but always normatively charged. Every regulation, benefit and support measure conveys ideas about what is considered worthy of support or desirable. This inevitably makes the welfare state the bearer of certain images of a "decent life". Consequently, socio-political conflicts do not only result from questions of distribution or efficiency, but are always also ideological disputes about lifestyles, responsibilities and freedoms.
The Dialectic of Freedom and Regulation
A key idea of the lecture was the questioning of a static understanding of freedom. Freedom from constraints requires conditions that are not only based on moral desires, but that must also be legally safeguarded. Thus, every institutional enabling of freedom has a regulatory flipside – and therefore remains ambivalent. Social welfare systems are also always bound by eligibility requirements, monitoring and obligations. The dialectic between freedom and institutional regulation cannot be resolved, but only shaped through reflection. The welfare state is therefore necessarily bureaucratic, legally structured and politically contested.
Prof. Anselm particularly emphasised the Protestant roots of this problem. The modern welfare state is, after all, part of a tradition of reformatory ideas of freedom, which have always understood freedom as both a promise and a claim: human freedom is promised in the Reformation, but it is also immediately constrained by responsibility and institutional structures. In Protestantism, freedom is always rooted in the relationship between God and man. The history of Lutheranism also shows that emancipatory advances have repeatedly been limited by the very freedom they themselves have generated. In Protestant ethics, freedom was never conceived as boundless self-determination, but was always linked to responsibility, order and moral orientation. These concepts can be transferred to the welfare state, but this also entails a susceptibility to paternalistic tendencies: those who want to guarantee the conditions for freedom run the risk of also prescribing its "correct" use.
The "Critical Realism of Freedom" in Protestant Ethics
In this context, Prof. Anselm emphasises the Protestant doctrine of sinfulness as a source of particular sensitivity to ambivalence. Sin functions less in terms of moral condemnation than epistemic humility: every creative idea has a dark side, every institution – including the welfare state – is fallible, driven by interests and prone to self-aggrandisement. We should therefore be aware of an irresolvable ambivalence both in interpersonal relationships and in relation to institutions such as the welfare state. Welfare state action guarantees a life of freedom and dignity. At the same time, however, help received can create dependency, support can be patronising, and protection can turn into control.
According to Prof. Anselm, the specific contribution of Protestant ethics lies in a "critical realism of freedom." This recognises both the structural dependence of human freedom on social security systems and the dangers associated with their institutional implementation. It is based on two insights: First, that freedom always remains beyond reach, i.e., a promise that can never be fully realised. Secondly, that human beings always tend to see what is good from their own perspective. The question of care, however, requires a radical orientation towards the needs of one's neighbour, behind which one's own perspective must take a back seat. The state must not shape freedom, but only support it. As soon as it begins to standardise lifestyles or designate certain options as the right ones, it crosses a line that affects the core of freedom. At the same time, it is inevitable that this will happen, and so we must always be aware of this dialectic and ambivalence and conduct the discourse in an open and differentiated manner.
The Welfare State as a Pioneer of the Decent Life
In his conclusion and in the subsequent discussion with the audience, Prof. Anselm advocated the model of "intelligent freedom". This model understands freedom neither as radical individualism nor as dissolution into the collective. Intelligent freedom is aware of its prerequisites, but at the same time insists on openness with regard to life plans. For the welfare state, this means not less, but more conscious action: it should open up spaces in which people with different beliefs and life paths can develop their own understanding of a decent and good life.
In conclusion, Prof. Anselm made it clear that the Protestant perspective does not claim ideological dominance, but should function as an institutional corrective. It should not blindly criticise the welfare state, but consciously expose its conflicting issues and protect it from moral overstretch. By reflecting on power without fundamentally questioning institutions, such criticism can contribute to the maturation of the welfare state. The way towards a good and decent life remains a matter of individual pursuit. The welfare state should create the conditions for this, but must never define them definitively.