Recent public policy in the UK has been dominated by a discourse which asserts that public expenditure on universal health coverage and welfare is a burden on the productive economy and unaffordable in what has been deemed a time of austerity. There is a widely held assumption that universal welfare provision, as offered by most modern welfare states, is a luxury, only afforded since World War 2 by wealthier economies. According to this view, if the productive efficiency of the economy falters, then this luxury should be trimmed back aggressively. Reduction in universal welfare will relieve enterprise, capital, and so-called hard-working families from the burdens of taxation required to fund these unproductive public services and (by implication) those unproductive families—the poor. We argue from history that there should be an end to setting the goal of economic growth against that of welfare provision. A healthy and prospering society needs both. We suggest that they feed each other.