Gemeinschaft, Gesellschaft und soziale Sicherung : Überlegungen zu Genese und Wandel des modernen Wohlfahrtsstaats

"Before industrialization, traditional communities - families, local neighborhoods, and religious groups - were meant to safeguard their members from risks like poverty. As the transition into industrialization produced new risks or generalized previously limited risks, this fallback system turned out to be insufficient. Hence, post-traditional communities, predominantly related to the labour movement, tried to offset the lack of social security. But they were only successful to some extent. Therefore, step by step the state created national social policy as a societal sort of prevention and combat of misery. Today, the different versions of social protection form a multi-level system characterizing the modern welfare state. Its status quo and its change may be described adequately, using some main concepts of Classical Sociology, e.g. 'community', 'society', or 'solidarity'." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))