Welfare for profit: moral, empirical and theoretical perspectives

Since the 1960s there has been an increasing number of proprietary agencies engaged in the delivery of social services in the United States. This development has generally been greeted with disfavour by welfare state advocates. Various arguments have been put forward against welfare for profit on moral, empirical and theoretical grounds. This paper analyzes these arguments and proposes several basic conditions that would seem to have significant bearing on the choice between profit and nonprofit providers for a given service.