Erhard ou Bismarck ? L'orientation de la politique sociale allemande à la lumière de la réforme de l'assurance sociale des années 1950

摘要

Erhard or Bismarck ? The orientation of German social policy in the light of the reform of social insurance in the 1950s During the 1950s, the West German social policy system stood at a crossroad. The traditional « Bismarckian » system of social welfare could not keep pace with the dynamics of the incipient « economic miracle » which quickly widened the gap between the development of real wages and that of old age pensions. One alternative idea, the adaptation of the German system to the comprehensive flat-rate coverage of the British welfare state based on the Beveridge Plan was dropped early for pragmatic reasons. The second alternative — opening the system of Social Security to the free market in accordance with the rules of the "social market economy" — was intensely discussed but finally dropped, because the social market economy policy was obviously unable to realize its dreams of egalitarian distribution of incomes and Volkskapitalismus (general ownership of industrial shares). Against this background, the Bismarckian system had a brilliant comeback after being reformed in 1957 by the introduction of wage-index-bound "dynamic" old age pensions. After several years of uncertainty, the German system of social policy was back to its traditional (classical) path.