Blood,politics, and social science. Richard Titmuss and the Institute of Economic Affairs, 1957-1973

Long before his last book, The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy, was published in early 1971, Richard M. Titmuss (1907-1973), a professor of social administration at the London School of Economics, had been a major figure in the debates over the welfare state. The Gift Relationship was the culmination of an eventful relationship with the Institute of Economic Affairs, a think tank that advocated the extension of rational pricing to social services. By arguing that the British system of blood procurement and distribution, based on free giving within the National Health Service, was more efficient than the partly commercialized American system, Titmuss intended to signal the dangers of the increasing commercialization of society. What made for the impact of his book, however, was not merely its argument that transfusion-transmitted infections were much more common with paid than with voluntary donors, but also its reflections on what it is that holds a society together. And here Titmuss argued that a "socialist" social policy, by encouraging the sense of community, played a central role. The eclecticism of Titmuss's work, together with its strong ethical and political flavor, makes it a rich and original account of the "social" at a time when heated debated over social policy, both in Britain and in the United States, raised the question of the division of labor among the social sciences.