The Capitalist State and the Origins of National Welfare Policy in Nineteenth-Century Germany

Abstract

Historians and sociologists point to the Bismarckian welfare reforms as the prime example of a strong state acting independently of class interests. Explanations of this sort ignore the class biases and contradictions embedded in the structure and functioning of the nineteenth-century German state. The class compromises between the industrial and agricultural fractions of capital as well as class conflicts between capitalists and workers were institutionalized within the state. The shape of the national welfare reforms can be understood as the outcome of protracted struggles and unstable compromises between a state-organized power bloc and a state-disorganized petty bourgeoisie. The theoretical insights of Nicos Poulantzas serve as a partial guide to this attempt to "being class back into" analyses of the policy making activities of capitalist states.