This text investigates why people are willing to support an institutional arrangement that realizes large-scale redistribution of wealth between social groups of society. Steffen Mau introduces the concept of "the moral economy" to show that acceptance of welfare exchanges rests on moral assumptions and ideas of social justice people adhere to. Analysing both the institution of welfare and the public attitudes towards such schemes, the book demonstrates that people are neither selfish nor altruistic; rather they tend to reason reciprocally. INDICE 1. Introduction 2. Self-Interest and Pocket-Book Attitudes 3. The Admixture of Motives: Broadening the Perspective 4. An Analytical Framework 5. The State of Welfare 5.1. A Comparative Framework 5.2. The Welfare Legacy in Britain 5.3. The Welfare Legacy in Germany 5.4. Welfare Regimes and their Moral Economies: Some Preliminary Objectives 6. The logic of Popular Support for Welfare Schemes and their Objectives 6.1. Redistribution in our Heads: Givers and Takers 6.2. The Two Moralities of Giving Assistance to the Poor 6.3. Unemployment Provision: The Messy Contract 6.4. Old Age: Transfers from the Active to the Inactive 6.5. Health: Risk Distribution and Cost Sharing 7. The Moral Economy Revisited.