History of social rights development in europe

The origin of the idea of modern social care traces back to Western Europe, to the age of enlightenment and the concept of bio-power introduced by the French philosopher, Michel Foucault. I will track the development of social rights by trying to provide a meaningful insight into their history and conceptualization in Western Europe. This theoretical and historical introduction will be followed by an analysis of the general social conditions of the modern West. During this evaluation we will see the tendencies and typical social problems that the states in Europe have to cope with. Also, I try to summarize the means by which the social care programs intend to tackle the newly emerging problems. To balance my analysis, unsuccessful attempts and constant problems of the contemporary society is also worth mentioning. This essay intends to define a fundamental idea and form of activity, namely the social care and find its historical focus points. It is a challenging task to do so owing to the diversity of historical records, therefore my narrative necessarily contains a certain amount of reduction. This analysis aims to describe the governmental and communal forms of social responsibility and does not intend to shed light on the individual forms of care connected to social history. My aim is first to follow the historical developments of social care from its beginnings in the Early Modern Age until the formation of the European Economic Community and then the European Union that intends to extend the system to an international level.