I was reading about Welfare States and came across this on Wikipedia:
Emperor Ashoka of India put forward his idea of a welfare state in the 3rd century BCE. [...] The concepts of welfare and pension were introduced in early Islamic law as forms of Zakat (charity), one of the Five Pillars of Islam, under the Rashidun Caliphate in the 7th century... The taxes (including Zakat and Jizya) collected in the treasury of an Islamic government were used to provide income for the needy, including the poor, elderly, orphans, widows, and the disabled. (Wikipedia)
Beyond those two examples from pre-modern history, I wanted to know if there are more. And I also wanted to know the reasons why they (including the two examples already mentioned) stopped being welfare states. Was it just a regime change, or was it due to the model not being economically sustainable?
What were the earliest examples of welfare states, what qualities did they have, and why did the end?