1. Mutual aid and the state in 19 th century Europe Paul Bicknell Dreyfus, M (1996) Mutual Benefit Societies in France: A Complex Endeavour. In: Marcel van der Linden, in collaboration with Michel Dreyfus, Bernard Gibaud and Jan Lucassen Social security mutualism : the comparative history of mutual benefit societies. 1st ed. Bern ; New York: Peter Lang.Part 2 Chapter 1, pp.209- 224. Dreyfus, M (2004) The Multiple Foundations of Trade Union Organisation in Nineteenth-Century Germany, France and Britain. In: Jean-Louis Robert, Antoine Prost, Chris Wrigley The emergence of European trade unionism. 1st ed., Aldershot: Ashgate. Ch.10, pp.215-232. Tatyana Kavanagh Dutton, P (2002) A mutual model for social insurance. In: Dutton, P: Origins of the French Welfare State, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Ch.2, pp.38-65. Messu, M (1999) Solidarism and familialism : the influence of ideological conceptions on the formation of French social protection. In: Abrahamson, P et al : Comparing social welfare systems in Nordic Europe and France, Paris: MIRE, volume 4, pp.113-125.

2. Mutual Benefit Movement in France Emerged on the eve of the French Revolution It interacted with five other power bases 1. the Church 2. the State 3. the Social (Geo-political during Le Chapelier 1791 – 1884) and Trade Unions (Post 1884) 4. the Employers and 5. the Insurance Networks. During the first half of the nineteenth century the Industrial Revolution caused an increase in mutual aid societies. Most are either outside or in opposition to the Church. Solidarity conflicts with charity – the latter guides Church activities. More than half of French towns lack Church benevolence offices – Bureaux de Bienfaisance. However Dreyfus argues intervention was massive in comparison to State and burgeoning Mutual Benefit Movement. The State invoked the cause of liberalism to justify social apathy until 1848. From 1852 until 1870 Napoleon III promotes the Imperial Mutual Benefits system. These societies obtain support from the Church.

3. Le Chapelier and the five decades that follow the revolutionary period Post 1791, the state vacillates between restraint and integration of the mutual aid societies. The prevailing liberalist principles impeded progress. Trade Unions legalised in 1884. Revolution also gives birth to the insurance industry. In 1850 a national retirement pension fund was founded managed by a deposit and consignment fund and after 1852, the direct and permanent restructuring by the state of the majority of mutual aid societies through the Imperial Mutual Benefit Organisation brought about major change. Before the 1852 (Napoleon III) Imperial Mutual Benefit System, the ambiguous function of the numerous mutual benefit societies that combined assistance with protest provided a hiding place for the incipient trade union movement. Mutuality organised geographically not trade. Afterwards the majority of mutual benefit societies separated from the workers movement and remained passive during the Commune – the two movements progressed simultaneously and separately. The perceived loyalty of the mutual benefit movement to the forces that wielded power inspired, according to Dreyfus, ‘ignorance and contempt’ among trade union militants. As a result of the 1852 legislation the mutual benefit movement specialised in health coverage, while the insurance companies became truly operational with the institution of the national insurance funds in case of death and accidents pursuant to the law of 11 July 1868. An 1898 law on industrial accidents entrusted this domain to the insurance industry. By 1870, approved societies covered more than three fifths of mutual aid, comprising 670,000 members observed by 110,000 honorary members. They are separate to the struggles of the communes.

4. Mutuality and trade unionism A Trade Union distinction: Between revolutionary and militant unionism, mostly found in southern Europe vis-à-vis the reformist administrative organisations dominating northern countries. The dichotomy of revolutionary/reformist, fighting/functional – French vision of trade unionism. In France and also Germany and Britain mutual societies were conceived as a spontaneous substitute for the vanishing obligation of the rich to protect the poor. They were legally reinforced in all three countries. In 1852 in France, 1875 in Britain and 1876 in Germany. In Germany following the collapse of the 1848 Revolution and the anti-socialist laws of 1878-90, Mutual Benefit Societies became the secret organisational basis for the workers movement. In Britain a union’s bargaining and benefit functions are closely linked from the outset. The British model formed the explicit blueprint for the liberal German unions which, under the inspiration of Max Hirsch and Max Duncker came together in a national confederation in 1868-69. Industrial negotiation and regulation rather than revolutionary. Restructuring following the repeal of anti-socialist laws in 1890. The comparison of contributions and union benefits in the three countries conforms to the classical picture of opposition between the two types of unionism: confrontational in France and managerial/administrative in Britain and Germany. E.G. In Britain 70 per cent of union expenditure was taken up by benefit payments in the years 1905-07, years of high unemployment, while less than 8 per cent funded strike action. In France in 1894 fewer than 9 per cent of the 2178 trade unions had policies for helping unemployed members.

5. Relations with the State(s) The size and nature of benefit schemes is determined less by ideological preference than by judicial constraint and national politics. A need to escape Poor Laws in England. In Germany the communes sought relief from the burden imposed by aiding the poor. In France the 1852 law attempted to remedy the ‘backwardness’ of municipal assistance, leading to a controlled mutuality, voluntarily maintained at a distance from the workers’ movement which was repressed and pushed back to the margins of legitimacy. In Germany sickness insurance schemes are set up in 1883 to allow free trade union systems to continue alongside other fund-holders. The most important of these at a local level took over obligatory schemes run by local authorities or individual enterprises. Free union funds persist – financed and run by the workers themselves. In 1889 free funds insured nearly 13 per cent of the total numbers covered by the statutory sickness benefits. In England the explosion of worker militancy in 1889-93 did not threaten the political system but it did encourage British authorities to reform union management strike funds from sickness funds – with the latter being offered legal protection. Eventually the 1911 National Insurance Act would oblige participating unions to adopt the management of their benefits in a manner approved by the state: the insurance scheme was developed in two parts – health and unemployment. In France union benefits remained modest. A number of unionists adopted an ideological opposition to the proposals for pensions for workers and the concomitant integrating effects. The French ‘anarcho’- syndicalist Fernand Pelloutier in 1898: “How can workers who accept the class struggle demand retirement pensions from a capitalist society?”

6. Britain’s National Insurance Act The National Insurance Act provided benefits for the unemployed in a restricted number of trades, on the essential condition that the unemployment was involuntary. As with health benefits, two thirds of the contributory income came from employers and the State. Before workers’ organisations could claim reimbursement of state benefits to members following the submission of audited accounts for Treasury inspection. Problems of sickness and unemployment are rendered uniform – to be unemployed no longer signified an inability to find work conforming to union terms and conditions, nor was it confined to a particular trade. On the continent, the absence of comparable legislation meant there was no similar transformation. The provision of unemployment benefits led to unions fostering a closer set of contractual relations with local authorities. The French State had a tax assistance rather than insurance based system used by Otto von Bismarck in Germany. In 1893 established free medical assistance was established. In 1904 the department of child welfare was created and in 1905 assistance to infirm and incurable old people. Mutual benefit societies, based on volunteering and social assistance, had benefited only a limited portion of the population. In France the municipalities subsidised workers organisations recognised by the law of 1898 as administering employment benefits. By 1910 aid was given to just 106 funds which supported 8500 unemployed workers. The attraction of public funding converged with the liberal opinion to preserve the voluntary character of these insurance schemes.