Richard Titmuss was a British social researcher and the founding figure of academic social administration and social policy, holding the first chair in the subject at the London School of Economics. His best-known book, The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy (1970), compared the voluntary, unpaid blood donation system in Britain with the commercialized blood market in the United States, arguing that paying donors could crowd out altruistic motivation, reduce the quality and supply of blood, and erode the wider ethic of gift-giving on which a good society depends. The book became a foundational text for later work on motivation crowding theory and on the moral limits of markets in areas such as health and welfare.
Facts
BirthplaceStopsley, near Luton, Bedfordshire, England 1 Nationality / Culture Defining ContributionFounded the academic discipline of social administration (now largely known as social policy) and held the founding chair in the subject at the London School of Economics. 1 Notable Work Connections
Practices Studied
Source Richard Titmuss (Wikipedia)
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Source Richard Titmuss (Wikipedia)Lead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia articleQuote, Lead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia article
Richard Morris Titmuss (16 October 1907 – 6 April 1973) was a British social researcher and teacher.
Sources
1. Richard Titmuss (Wikipedia)
WikipediaLead paragraph, opening sentence (birth date)
Richard Morris Titmuss (16 October 1907-6 April 1973) was a British social researcher and teacher.
Lead paragraph, opening sentence (birth year)
Richard Morris Titmuss (16 October 1907-6 April 1973) was a British social researcher and teacher.
Lead paragraph, opening sentence (death date)
Richard Morris Titmuss (16 October 1907-6 April 1973) was a British social researcher and teacher.
Lead paragraph, opening sentence (death year)
Richard Morris Titmuss (16 October 1907-6 April 1973) was a British social researcher and teacher.
Lead paragraph, opening sentence (nationality)
Richard Morris Titmuss (16 October 1907-6 April 1973) was a British social researcher and teacher.
Lead paragraph, second sentence (defining contribution)
He founded the academic discipline of social administration (now largely known in universities as social policy) and held the founding chair in the subject at the London School of Economics (LSE).
Career section, Gift Relationship paragraph
His final and perhaps the most important book, The Gift Relationship expressed his own philosophy of altruism in social and health policy and, like much of his work, emphasized his preference for the values of public service over private or commercial forms of care.
Established facts section, opening sentence (birthplace)
Titmuss was born 16 October 1907 at Lane Farm, Stopsley, near (now a suburb of) Luton, Bedfordshire, the second child of farmer Morris Titmuss and Maud Louise (née Farr), also of farming background.
Practices Studied: Welfare State, Article text
His books and articles of the 1950s helped to define the characteristics of Britain's post World War II welfare state and of a universal welfare society, in ways that parallel the contributions of Alva Myrdal and Gunnar Myrdal in Sweden.
View the Source Wikidata: Richard Titmuss
Wikidata Q504987, class allow-list match, case-insensitive label variant (w-bbfill-smallsix2-0926/resolve_ci.ps1)View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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