My old friend Danny Shapiro on Book TV on his very good book of the same name: “Is the Welfare State Justified?”
The book is a very serious and — a nice surprise! — readable treatment of the subject. I recommend it highly. Is the Welfare State Justifed?, by Daniel Shapriro (Note: People looking for angry denunciations of statism will not find it in this book; it is a sober comparison of the various foundational reasons for supporting policies with the empirical evidence.)