الدولة الاجتماعية وسؤال الحرية: في حدود الحماية والتدخل

Abstract

This article starts from the central assumption that the social state does not constitute the opposite of freedom, but rather one of its possible institutional forms, provided that it remains bound by the constitution, democratic accountability, and respect for the autonomy of both the individual and the community. Therefore, the article does not merely offer a theoretical presentation of the concept of the social state; rather, it seeks to reconstruct the problematic from the perspective of the relationship between protection and freedom: how can the state intervene to secure the conditions of a dignified life without turning into a mechanism of tutelage or excessive management of everyday life?

The study addresses this question through a dual approach. On the one hand, it highlights that social rights — foremost among them education, health, work, and social protection — are not secondary additions to the system of freedoms, but practical conditions that make these freedoms exercisable. On the other hand, it discusses the risks of bureaucratic inflation, the transformation of care into dependency, and the possibility of using social policies as a means of controlling society rather than empowering it. On this basis, the article proposes a synthetic reading that views the democratic social state as a formula for balancing negative freedom, positive freedom, and social justice, rather than as a mere apparatus for distributing benefits or producing loyalty.