What are the characteristics of a social democratic state after WWII?

In a number of Western European countries after the war, social democracy became the dominant system of government and would remain so for many years. After the economic disaster of the Great Depression and the horrors of World War II there was a widespread yearning to establish a system that would eradicate the social and economic conditions that had led to war, chaos, and poverty on a massive scale. It seemed that only some form of social democracy was capable of meeting the enormous challenges ahead.
To some extent, social democracy picked up from where governments had left off during the war. During World War II democratic governments became involved in the running of the economy to a hitherto unprecedented extent. The results seemed impressive, and a growing consensus emerged that what had helped win the war could also win the peace. Extensive government involvement in the management of the economy had delivered the goods, eradicating the scourge of mass unemployment through re-armament and conscription. Now that the war was over, it was time for governments to turn their attention to building a society fit for the future, using the same tools of economic planning and resource allocation that had proved so successful during the war.
In no small measure, World War II emerged out of the Great Depression and the immense social and economic upheaval it had caused. In the post-war period social democratic governments put in place extensive systems of public welfare designed to prevent people from falling into destitution. Aside from the moral considerations involved, there were also political imperatives at work. If welfare states could mitigate the worst excesses of capitalism, so the thinking went, there would be fewer grievances for political extremists to exploit, as Fascists and Communists had done so successfully prior to the war.
Substantial government involvement in the economy, combined with generous welfare provision, were designed to provide some measure of social peace and stability. To that end, social democratic governments sought to make labor unions partners in the formulation and execution of industrial policy. Industrial strife had blighted relations between capital and labor in the inter-war years throughout Western Europe. Social democrats held that the remedy for this seemingly intractable problem was to give greater concessions to organized labor in return for industrial peace. Allied to this strategy was the policy of full employment, vigorously pursued by social democratic governments in the belief that it would banish the specter of “The Hungry Thirties” when millions lay idle at a time of worldwide economic depression.