SECTION 5 UNDERSTANDING SPECIFIC ESC RIGHTS
SOCIAL SECURITY AS A HUMAN
The Purpose of Module 11
The purpose of this module is to help ESC activists understand social security as a right.
Before states in the North began
SECTION 5 UNDERSTANDING SPECIFIC ESC RIGHTS
SOCIAL SECURITY AS A HUMAN
The Purpose of Module 11
The purpose of this module is to help ESC activists understand social security as a right.
Before states in the North began assuming increasing responsibility for the social security of their citizens, poverty relief and protection against economic insecurity were provided by a variety of private institutions. These included the extended family, the church, nobility who gave alms to the poor, and trade guilds that pooled their resources in order to protect their members during hard times. Families bore the primary moral duty of protecting their members against starvation and destitution. Relief of distress by social organizations outside the family was a matter of charity. There was no conception that people were entitled to social assistance as a right. The "poor laws" adopted in countries such as the United Kingdom represented a rudimentary form of public responsibility for the destitute who were unable to obtain assistance from their families. However, acceptance of poor law relief often involved personal humiliation, the loss of civil rights, and compulsory removal to poor houses. Husband and wife were separated in this process.
The Industrial Revolution
The industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism from about 1750 destroyed the existing networks of social support. Individuals now had to sell their labor on the labor markets at the prevailing market rate. These workers and their families were completely dependent for their livelihood on the regular payment of wages. Large numbers of laborers were frequently unemployed for long periods without any form of insurance against the risks of work injuries, sickness or unemployment. Families often ended up living in slums in unsanitary and impoverished conditions. In Das Kapital, published in 1867, Karl Marx identified the commodification of labor, which stripped workers of their humanity as a major feature of the capitalist system. To a large extent, the development of social security systems was an attempt to humanize the ravages inflicted by the capitalist system on the working classes. To protect the urban working classes from destitution, certain protective systems were gradually developed, such as savings bank facilities sponsored by government; placing some obligation on employers to maintain ill and injured workmen; the growth of mutual aid societies; and private insurance providing life policies and funeral benefits. However, as the International Labour Organization (ILO) has pointed out:
Gradually as a result of pressure from workers and other social groups, many states began to play a more active role in developing systems of social protection. The motivation and political philosophy behind the establishment of these systems, and the particular form that they took, varied significantly in different regions.
The government of the German Chancellor Bismarck was responsible for establishing the first broad system of social insurance between 1883 and 1889. The system was compulsory for wage earners, and was financed by contributions from workers and employers. Workers, employers and the state all played a role in the management of the scheme. Thus workers were protected from destitution and the stigma of poor-law relief by a system of guaranteed benefits. The benefits received were related to an individuals monthly contributions. It should be noted, however, that the purpose of introducing this system was not to bring about greater socioeconomic equality. The system in fact reinforced the existing socioeconomic stratification by introducing a compulsory and distinctive social insurance system for each of the different classes of workers, e.g., one for blue-color workers, one for agricultural workers, one for office workers, one for teachers. Other countries in Europe followed the example of Germany by developing systems of social insurance for workers. By the 1930s social insurance had spread to Latin America, the United States and Canada
A contributory system of unemployment insurance introduced in Britain in 1911 was confined initially to just three trades-engineering, shipbuilding, and building and construction. After World War I, the unemployment insurance system was significantly expanded to other workers. During the years between the wars, in which there was mass unemployment, a two‑tiered system emerged: unemployment benefits were available as of right for those with insurance, and means‑tested social assistance for those without insurance. A distinction was created between those claiming social security benefits as of right and those claiming because of need. This also tracked a pervasive public perception relating to the "deserving" versus the "undeserving" poor.
The development of social security systems in Britain and the United States (and other countries in this tradition) must be viewed against the backdrop of 