Bismarck and State Socialism

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. BISMARCK'S SOCIAL PRINCIPLES. It has already been said that the State Socialistic legislation of the German Empire cannot properly be appreciated unless it be considered in relation to the traditional economic policy of ' Prussia, upon which it is based. Similarly, in examining the J attitude...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. BISMARCK'S SOCIAL PRINCIPLES. It has already been said that the State Socialistic legislation of the German Empire cannot properly be appreciated unless it be considered in relation to the traditional economic policy of ' Prussia, upon which it is based. Similarly, in examining the J attitude of Prince Bismarck, who more than any other man has been instrumental in bringing that legislation into existence, it is necessary to know the standpoints from which he has proceeded. In other words, what are Bismarck's ideas concerning society and the State ? How does he interpret their duties, one to the other? What is the ideal at which his social-political policy aims ? These questions must be answered if we are to do justice to the German Chancellor's efforts on behalf of social amelioration. The idea that Prince Bismarck purposes the re-establishment of the old despotic monarchy may at once be dismissed as absurd. He is again and again charged with dark political designs, but neither his public sayings nor his ministerial acts afford justification for the imputation. His aims are social rather than political. He has, it is true, created a reaction, but the reaction is economic: it is, moreover, a reaction against a reaction?the reaction of Collectivism following that of Individualism. Prince Bismarck proceeds from the proposition that the State is a Christian institution. So long ago as June J5th, 1847, he r declared to the Prussian United Diet, which was not accustomed to hear such words from an obscure provincial deputy: ? /' I am of opinion that the idea of the Christian State is as old as the ci-devant Holy Roman Empire, as old as all the European States, that it is the soil in which these States have taken root, and that a State, if it would have an assured p...