The German Question, Part Sixty-Three

"Bismarck" Part 5/H "Bismarck as Chancellor & A Treaty With 'Contentious Relatives' "
"Fear of Average People Brings Social Change"

Bismarck was a staunch monarchist conservative, but he was always thinking about ways to undermine his (and the monarchy's) opponents, which brought him to see a certain sense of reality in the politics of his day. He was very troubled by the socialist movement in Germany, including the more radical variety, communism.* He tried suppressing the socialist movement and its major face to the German public, the "Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei," or "Social Democratic Workers Party."** Laws drawn up by Bismarck were passed by the Reichstag banning the party, and a number of party officials were arrested, but the law was circumvented as the now outlawed party ran candidates as independents, with no political party label, which was a right guaranteed by the German constitution. The number of such "independents" rose in representation in the Reichstag and state legislative bodies. Bismarck feared revolution, and his fears brought him to propose state sponsored social legislation to head off the ever growing popular movement. These programs, most later amended and expanded, became the basis for modern Germany's system of social services. To "soften" the notion of "state sponsored socialism" leveled by Germany's right wing politicians, Bismarck tied the legislative initiatives to Christian principles, something some of America's "Christians(?)" seem to have forgotten. (Anyone can call themselves a "Christian" or any other religious designation, but it doesn't make it so.)

First came health insurance in 1883. While the new law covered only a fairly small percentage of the German working population, it helped to insure most of the lowest paid workers in Germany. The costs were split between employers and employees, with employers only responsible for about a third. In 1884 came what was essentially "workers compensation," or accident insurance for workers. Not only did it pay for injured workers after exhaustion of the above insurance benefits, but it also paid workers a partial pension if they were temporarily disabled. The program was financed by employers, and eventually just came to be seen as the "cost of doing business." In 1889 came Old-Age and Disability Insurance (more commonly known in America as "Social Security"), financed by fees on workers and employers and supplemented by the government.*** Initially, pensions could be collected beginning at age 70, but this was later changed to age 65. The disability part essentially took over from the "workers compensation" program, mentioned above, for workers who were permanently disabled. An added benefit of these social programs was that fewer young Germans left the country for America, where wages were usually higher, but none of the social protections listed above were in effect. While the loss of German workers to America slowed, the growth of the socialist movement continued to climb, even with the enacted reforms. (A Word History is below the notes)

* Remember, the communism that eventually spread around much of the world was based upon the writings and ideas of two Germans, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

**For those familiar with modern German politics, the above mentioned party changed its name in the 1890s, becoming "The Social Democratic Party of Germany" ("Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands," commonly known by the initials "SPD"), which is still one of Germany's major political parties. Reports in the American media usually refer to the party as the "Social Democrats."

*** Bismarck wanted the German government involved (both financially and administratively) in these programs in the hopes of luring workers away from the socialist movement. Just as American progressives have faced tough opposition to social legislation with claims that the "government is getting too powerful," and, "government takeover," Bismarck faced the same from German conservatives, and he was forced to change his proposals, except regarding "Social Security," to which the government contributed financially and administratively.

WORD HISTORY:
Baum/Beam/Boom-All three words are closely related, and here is the "Baum" part of "Tannen(baum), from the previous part of this series. The word apparently goes back to Indo European "bheu" or "bu," which meant "to be, exist, be living" but also in that sense, "to grow." This gave Old Germanic "baumaz," meaning "a living, growing tree," which became "bauma" in West Germanic (German and English are Germanic, but more specifically "West Germanic" languages). This then gave Old High German "boum," which eventually became modern German "Baum," meaning "tree," but it can (rarely) also mean "girder," similar to the English word "beam." English "beam" is really just the same word, its early history being the same as "baum," and like its close German relative, it too meant "tree" in Anglo-Saxon (Old English). By the late Old English period, English had settled more on "tree" as the word for this woody growing plant, but "beam" did not die out, rather it took on the meaning "timber for a ship," eventually meaning the support timbers of the frame, and of course, we still use it in that sense today, although not only for ships. Further, also in the Old English period, "beam" had taken on the meaning as in "beam of light." I found a speculative reason on why this developed, but I'm not terribly convinced, so I just as well speculate on it myself: "perhaps" the notion of branches emanating from the trunk of a tree (remember, it also still had the meaning "tree" back then) gave Old English speakers the idea of "light rays coming from a common source." Hey, my speculation is as good as the one I saw elsewhere. Eventually the spelling became "bem" and "beme," before taking on the modern spelling. "Boom," not the loud sound of a crash, but the kind used in construction, is also really the same word, but English borrowed it from the Dutch, whose spelling of German "Baum" and English "beam" is "boom." The Dutch word also meant "tree," but like its Germanic relatives, it had developed other meanings, in this case, "a horizontal piece of timber or metal." Forms of these words are widespread in the Germanic languages, especially in the West Germanic languages: besides English "beam," German "Baum," and Dutch "boom," West Frisian has "beam," North Frisian has "buum" and "booam," Low German Saxon has "Boom," Letzeburgisch/Luxembourgish has "Bam," Icelandic has the rare (high style/poetic) "baðmur" (=bathmur). In all of these languages, except English, it still primarily means "tree."