SSMAR SOCIETATEA TIIN IFIC DE MANAGEMENT DIN ROMÂNIA B&L Business & Leadership Nr. 1 - 2011, pp. 17-36 ISSN 2069-4814 FROM THE WELFARE STATE TO THE MINIMAL STATE Authors Mirela Minic , Suzana Demyen Abstract: The present paper aims at illustrating aspects of the state's role in the economy and the manner in which the state can intervene in situations directly related to the effects of the economic crisis. We also highlight Romania’s ranking among the 27 EU countries and the overall situation of direct investments, imports and domestic exports. The first chapter presents issues argued by J.M. Keynes, i.e. the fact the state is required to be deeply involved in influencing the national economy, while chapter three depicts an overall image of the manner in which other countries have found the way to fight against its negative effects. Key words: welfare state, interventionist state, economic crisis, and minimal state. 1. Introduction These past few years we have been facing a series of processes and phenomena such as globalization, poverty deepening, the limited character of some resources, enhancement of the technical and technological level and automatically of the level of people’s dependence on them, and at present we have to cope with a world economic crises, which puts the countries world-wide to the test. Consequently a series of situations occur, problems that cannot be solved by individuals themselves, requiring a stronger intervention from the part of the state. And for the correction of the situations of markets failure the governmental intervention is a must. The welfare economic theory is based on an optimistic view of the governmental intervention in its operation for and upon the effectiveness of public choice, Minic Mirela, Ph.D., Professor, „Eftimie Murgu” University of Re i a, România, e-mail : minica_mirela@yahoo.com Demyen Suzana, Masterand „Eftimie Murgu” University of Re i a, România, e-mail: suzana_demyen@yahoo.com