SPEAKING at a Chap Goh Meh event in Klang earlier this year, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said that any attempt to turn Malaysia into a welfare state could result in an economic disaster. He was reported to have said that welfare states would eventually lose their competitive advantage due to the onset of complacency. The prime minister was absolutely right in making that claim and his resoluteness should be applauded. Becoming a welfare state is most certainly not the best way forward for our country. As we have a shared history with the UK, perhaps it is worth referring to British history when discussing the concept of a welfare state. William Beveridge, in particular, is widely considered to be the architect of the modern British welfare state. An economist and social reformer, Beveridge was asked by the British government in 1941 to draft a report on how the nation should be rebuilt after World War II. In the Beveridge Report, which was subsequently published in 1942, Beve