If I am not mistaken, the emphasis has shifted within this relation since the 18th century. The ideal of humanitarianism and of the rights of man, mostly in England, displaced the centralist spirit of the Elizabethan Poor Law, according to which work had to be provided for the poor for the benefit of the community. The ideal of humanitarianism substituted for this principle another one: every poor person has a right to minimal subsistence, whether he wants and is able to work or not. On the other hand, modern assistance, in the correlation between moral duty (of the giver) and moral right (of the recipient) prefers to emphasize the former.

XREF: Connects to discussions of the moral economy and how welfare regimes encode particular ethical relationships between state and citizen.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 428