著者

福澤 直樹

出版者

政治経済学・経済史学会

雑誌

土地制度史学 (ISSN:04933567)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.36, no.4, pp.1-17, 1994-07-20

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of the state assistance-system for unemployed from the period of Wilhelmine Germany to the Weimar Republic and to make its background clear. In Germany no assistance-system for unemployed was taken by the state before World War I. This was not caused by the absence of the unemployment problem, but by the absence of agreement to that the state organize the redistribution as seen in the social insurance or in the state subsidy, due to the dominance of the classical Liberal way of thinking. It was after the war, in the political and economic confusion, with enormous unemployment, that the first state assistance-system for unemployed was introduced. However, it was not the unemployment insurance planned earlier, but rather a special unemployment assistance which was financed solely from the public (mainly state) expenditure, the so-called "Erwerbslosenfiirsorge", because there was no prospect of keeping the finance of insurance just after the end of the war. After that, several attempts were made to realize the unemployment insurance more adequate for a market economy, in which the propotion of benefit to burden is clear. But the attempts were not successful till 1927. In the meantime the Erwerbslosenfiirsorge went on, as the only state assistance-system for unemployed, in spite of problems of administration, conflict between proportional contributions and standardized benefits which appeared after the hyper-inflation, and insufficient right to assistance due to means-testing. The Erwerbslosenfiirsorge kept the assistance just sufficient to sustain the essentials of life, even in the financial pressure in the recession in 1925/26. The Erwerbslosenfiirsorge functioned as the actual system for effective maintenance of the livelihood of the unemployed. The right to social security for unemployed was essentially established, de facto, with the Erwerbslosenfiirsorge. But the Erwerbslosenfiirsorge lacks the financial stability, and the confusion of bases of burden and benefit brought social frictions. Therefore, the unemployment-assistance system had to be changed into a state insurance system. Because of this change, a wide range of people would not be covered by the new system. Therefore, a main point of discussion about introduction of unemployment insurance was, how a security system with benefits corresponding to former income could be established without hindering the function of insurance as a comprehensive social security system. As a result, the elements of planned redistribution were included in the insurance, contrary to the original intent. For the persons excluded from this social security system, a parallel system like "Flirsorge" was introduced. The establishment of the insurance law in 1927 can be understood as a systematization of both functions of social security, i.e. the insurance, which is adequate for a market economy, and the Fiirsorge, which had been combined with the right to assistance in the Erwerbslosenfiirsorge. We can see that the origin of the complementary relationship between unemployment insurance and unemployment aid in the contemporary Employment Law in Germany had already been established at this time.