Creating Social Europe IV

The growth of social protection pre-1914

Preamble: Foundations of social insurance

• Bismarckean (Germany)– Earnings-related system (reinforces social

hierarchies: low state subsidies)– Local autonomy (founding social democracy)

• Beveridgean (Britain)– Flat-rate (in the name of equal treatment: a regressive

tax? More state subsidy)– Central domination (bureaucratic) from Whitehall

• Diverse forms of social insurance

Social Assistance models: origins

• Political importance of rural sectors – Lower cost of living– Smallholders: employers or employees?

• Examples: tax-funded old age pensions– Denmark (1893)– [UK (1908)]– Sweden (1913)– [?? France (1910)]

Scandinavia

Historical assumption: Scandinavian welfare is product of SDP political dominance

• Both Sweden and Denmark debate (and reject) Bismarckean pension scheme

• Debate influenced by position of rural workers and small farmers

• Both threatened by emigration

Denmark

• Free trade economy based on agriculture• US imports threaten rural production (1880s)• Poor law funded by rural rents• Social insurance = no solution• 1893 alcohol tax funds old age pension

– For morally respectable poor– Shift of burden to town

• Ghent system extended (voluntary insurance)

Sweden

More industrialised: more protectionist

• Social Democrats (SDP) recruit industrial workers

• More punitive poor law (rural rent funded)

• Higher emigration: smaller farms: more women workers

• Social insurance option more seriously considered

Swedish pension compromise (1913)

• Universal coverage• Graduated worker/beneficiary contribution• Graduated pension (sop to SDP & urban

workers)• No employer contribution (largely tax-

funded)

• Plus introduction of state subsidies for voluntary sickness funds (1913)

Scandinavian mixture

• Tax-funded assistance ‘as of right’

• Schemes neither socialist nor punitive

• Co-exist with state-subsidised voluntary social insurance

• n.b. UK tax-funded old age pensions (1908) as supplement to compulsory social insurance

France: social assistance and voluntary ‘insurance’

III Republic: anti:-imperialist,Germany &RC• Mutuelles associated with Bonapartism• 1880s Republic debates public assistance

for groups ‘at risk’ of destitution– 1893 sickness (free medical care)– 1905 old age / disability– 1905 pregnant women and large familiesSupport grounded on ‘risk’, not poverty: helps

waged and unwaged (peasant proprietors)

Remember Franco-German relations 1871

France: support for self help

Reforming the polity• 1884 – Trade union rights recognised • 1893 mutuelles reformed (democratic elections

and extensions of benefits) • 1905 national (& local) government subsidies for

mutuality & unemployment funds• 1910 Insurance-based pensions [ROP]

– For lowest paid peasants and workers

[fails and becomes reliant on state allowance = a national social assistance programme]

The impact of industrialisation

Conclusions I: typologies of social insurance

• ‘Ghent’ model: (in France, Denmark, Sweden) = local or national subsidies for mutual aid based on voluntary affiliation

• [term used most often for municipal unemployment funds: cf Germany]

• A mix of ‘pure’ insurance and collective self help

• But social insurance is not the only option: social assistance offers alternative

Conclusion II: the politics of social policy development

Social policies shaped by implicit agendas• Scandinavia: rural poverty, rural taxes,

emigration• France: consolidation of republican virtues

(solidarity)• Germany: consolidation of established social

order, legitimacy of Reich• UK: promoting national efficiency and Empire

By 1914: rising significance of national systems