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The Sources of Business Interest in Social Insurance: Sectoral versus National Differences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Isabela Mares
Affiliation:
Stanford University

Abstract

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When and why have employers supported the development of institutions of social insurance that provide benefits to workers during various employment-related risks? The analysis developed in this article challenges the dominant explanations of welfare state development, which are premised on the assumption that business opposes social insurance. The article examines the conditions under which self-interested, profit-maximizing firms support the introduction of a new social policy, and it specifies the most significant variables explaining the variation in employers' social policy preferences. The model is tested in three political episodes of welfare state development in France and Germany, using policy documents submitted by various employers' associations to bureaucratic and parliamentary commissions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 2002

References

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16 The importance of employers' associations in the administration of contributory insurance policies varies tremendously across policies. For example, the Bismarckian reforms, which pioneered the principle of a “corporatist” administration of social insurance, gave employers' representatives one-half of the number of seats in the institutions administering old-age insurance and one-third of the seats in the supervisory councils of sickness insurance. By contrast, accident insurance was administered entirely by employers' associations, with no involvement of trade union representatives or the state. A potential conflict can emerge between employers' associations (preferring collective control) and large firms (who favor firm-level control). How this conflict is resolved depends on (1) the sanctioning instruments of the associations and (2) the importance of social policy to the firm. Thus, in the case of disability insurance, the introduction of compulsory insurance largely ended private social policies. By contrast, in the case of early retirement policies, employers' associations were not able to stop the process of firm-level early retirement.

17 “Von der Arbeitslosenversicherung,” Der Arbeitgeber, December 1, 1913. For similar considerations, see also “Das Problem der Arbeitslosenversicherung,” DerArbeitgeber, January 1, 1910; Arbeitgeberverbände, Vereinigung der Deutschen, Geschäftsbericbt der Vereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände (Berlin: VDA 1927), 160Google Scholar. It is important to point out, however, that employers have not always opposed policies with no control on the part of firms, such as Ghent policies. On small firms' support for Ghent policies, see Mares, Isabela, “Strategic Alliances and Social Policy Reform: Unemployment Insurance in Comparative Perspective,” Politics and Society 28, no. 2 (2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 In other words, monopolistic behavior is more likely in industries where the average firm size is higher. See Carlton, Dennis and Perloff, Jeffrey, Modern Industrial Organization (New York: Harper Collins 1994), 187–88Google Scholar. This assumption might not be fulfilled, however, during early historical periods, when markets were not fully integrated and when small firms enjoyed a near monopoly in local markets. Two factors that work against the effects of the fragmentation of the product markets during the early period of industrialization are (1) the presence of economies of scale (in some industries such as steel and railroads) and (2) the existence of cartel-type agreements among large producers. These factors increase the degree of market power of large firms despite the fragmentation of product markets. Beginning in the 1880s in both France and Germany, cartel-like arrangements were pervasive in industries such as iron and steel or railroads. See, for example, Brandt, Karl, “Konzentration und wirtschaftliche Entwicklung,” in Arndt, Helmut, ed., Die Konzentration in der Wirtschaft (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1971)Google Scholar; Fischer, Wolfram and Czada, Peter, “Wandlungen in der Deutschen Industriestrukture im 20. Jahrhundert,” in Ritter, Gerhard, ed., Entstehung und Wandel der modernen Gesellschaft (Berlin: Gruyter, 1970), 146–49Google Scholar; Houssiaux, Jacques, Lepouvoirdu monopole (Paris: Sirey, 1978)Google Scholar.

19 This is a standard comparative statics result in a Cournot model of competition; see Carlton and Perloff (fn. 18), 233–34.

20 Other studies have suggested additional reasons why large firms are more likely than small producers to support the introduction of social policies. In a study of the social policy preferences of American employers regarding the Clinton health care plan, Cathie Jo Martin found that “large firms are more likely to develop a supportive position on health reform. Size matters because larger firms may be more willing to avoid labor strife. Larger companies are more likely to have economies of scale in political action”; Martin, , “Nature or Nurture? Sources of Firm Preference for National Health Reform,” American Political Science Re-view 89 (December 1995), 900Google Scholar.

21 For a formulation of these hypotheses, see Peter Hall and David Soskice, “An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism,” in Hall and Soskice (fn. 2); Estevez-Abe, Iversen, and Soskice (fn. 2).

22 Estevez-Abe, Iversen, and Soskice (fn. 2), 181.

23 Wood (fn. 2).

24 See King, Gary, Keohane, Robert, and Verba, Sidney, Designing SocialInquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 137Google Scholar. France and Germany are also examples of coordinated and uncoordinated market economies, respectively. As numerous historians of the development of the German political economy have pointed out, the defining institutional characteristics of a coordinated market economy were already in place in the mid-1880s. These included (1) provision of “patientfinance”by large banks and (2) strong and encompassing business associations. See, for example, Hentschel, Volker, Wirtschaft und Wirtschaftspolitik im •wilhelminischen Deutschland: Organisierter Kapitalismus undInterventionsstaat (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1978)Google Scholar; Ullmann, Hans-Peter, Interessenverbände in Deutschland (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1983)Google Scholar.

25 See, for example, Fridenson, Patrick and Straus, Andre, Le Capitalismefrancais au XIX-XXa” sie-cle (Paris: Fayard, 1987)Google Scholar; Woronoff, Denis, Histoire de I'industrie en France (Paris: Seuil, 1994)Google Scholar.

26 Flora and Alber (fn. 12), 497, 501.

27 Republique Francaise, Journal Officiel (Sénat), March 12, 1889, 200.

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29 Hoffmann, Walther. Das Wachstum der Deutschen Wirtscbaft seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Springer, 1965), 212Google Scholar.

30 See Pohl, Hans, Berufliche Aus- und Weiterbildung in der deutschen Wirtschaft seit dem 19. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1979)Google Scholar.

31 Thelen, Kathleen and Kuttie, Ikuo, “The Rise of Nonmarket Training Regimes: Germany and Japan Compared,” Journal of Japanese Studies 25 (January 1999), 39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 See Gerhard Adelmann, “Die Berufliche Ausbildung und Weiterbildung in der Deutschen Wirtschaft, 1871–1918,” in Pohl (fn. 30), 21.

33 Ibid., 23.

34 See Pelpel, Patrice and Troger, Vincent, Histoire de I'enseignement technique (Paris: Hachette, 1993)Google Scholar. For postwar developments, see Tanguy, Lucie, “Les promoteurs de la formation en enterprise, 1945–1971,” Travail et emploi 86 (April 2001)Google Scholar.

35 See Cross, Gary, Immigrant Workers in Industrial France: The Making of a New Laboring Class (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; and Noiriel, Gerard, Workers in French Society in the Nineteenth andTwentieth Centuries (Oxford: Berg, 1990)Google Scholar. According to statistics reported in Cross, in 1906,17.6 percent of the workforce in metallurgy and 10 percent of the workforce in the chemical industry were foreign workers (p. 23). As Noiriel pointed out: “The dependence on very large-scale immigration during the 1920s became one of the primary sociological factors underlying the boom in French industry during those years. Immigrant workers were, moreover, most numerous in the most dynamic sectors with the greatest profits” (p. 123). During the interwar period “the proportion of immigrant workers in heavy metal-industry rose to 38.2 percent (in 1931). In the mines, immigrant workers represented 6.5 percent of the labor force in 1906 and 42 percent in 1931” (p. 121).

36 This dataset is based on documents found at the following archives: the Economic Archive of Rheinland-Westfalen (Cologne), the State-archive Dahlem (Berlin), the Federal Archive (Potsdam and Koblenz), the Archive of the Central Federation of German Employers' Association (Cologne). The archival sources in France are the National Archives, the Archive of the Paris Chamber of Commerce (which hosts the archive of the Assembly of Presidents of French Chambers of Commerce), the Archive of the Commission de Representation Patronale and the Center of Contemporary Archives.

37 I analyze the policy preferences of employers in the development of accident, unemployment, and old-age insurance. I have selected these policies to maximize variation in the types of policy trade-offs faced by firms during the introduction of a new social policy. In the cases analyzed below, the set of policy alternatives that are on the agenda of policymakers include policies of social insurance organized by trade unions (in the case of unemployment insurance), private, voluntary insurance (in the case of workplace accidents), and universalistic social policies (in the case of old-age insurance during the postwar period).

38 “L'assurance libre contre les accidents du travail,” La Réforme Sociale, June 16, 1893, 961.

39 See “L'assurance obligatoire allemande et l'assurance libre,” La Réforme Sociale, March 1, 1894, 345.

40 Verhandlungen, Mitteilungen und Berichte des Centralverbandes Deutscher Industrieller, no. 19 (1883), 149.

41 Verhandlungen, Mitteilungen und Berichte des Centralverbandes Deutscher Industrieller, no. 28 (1884), 34.

42 L. Francke, “Die Stimmen der Deutschen Handels- und Gewerbekammern liber das Haftpflicht-gesetz vom 7. Juni 1871 und den Reichs-Unfallsversicherungs-Gesetzentwurf vom 8.3.1881,” Zeitschrift des Königlich-Preussiscben Statistischen Buros 21 ().

43 Ibid., 399.

44 Chamber of Commerce Braunsberg, in Francke (fn. 42).

45 Chamber of Commerce of Paris, De la responsabilité des patrons en matière d'accidents, Archive of the Chamber of Commerce of Paris, III. 5. 60 (1).

46 Chamber of Commerce of Abbeville, Les accidents du travail: Rapportpresentea la chambre de commerce d'Abbevillepar M. Paillart (Paris: CCP, 1898)Google Scholar.

47 Statistics of the period quoted in Tennstedt, Florian and Winter, Heidi, Quellensammlung zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sozialpolitik: Von der Haftpflichtgesetzgebung zur ersten Unfallversicherungsvorlage (Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer, 1993), 537Google Scholar. There are no similar data available for France. Ironically, French lawmakers relied on these German statistics during the deliberation of the accident insurance legislation.

48 Verein Deutscher Eisen- und Stahlindustrieller, “Vorstandssitzung des Vereins Deutscher Eisen und Stahlindustrieller,” Stahl und Eisen 11 (1884), 177–79Google Scholar.

49 Darcy, H., La question des accidents du travail devant le Se'nat (Paris: Chaix, 1896), 6Google Scholar.

50 See various documents quoted in Tennstedt and Winter (fn. 47), 343–49, 279.

51 Eingabe des Vereins süddeutscher Baumwollindustrieller an den Bundesrat, in Tennstedt and Winter (fn. 47), 554–56.

52 Denkschrift des Deutschen Landwirtschaftsrates für das Reichsamt des Innern, in Tennstedt and Winter (fn. 47), 531–38.

53 Augé-Laribé, Michel, Lapolitique agricole de la France de 1880 a 1940 (Paris: PUF, 1950), 113Google Scholar.

54 Lefranc, Georges, Les organisationspatronales en France (Paris: Payot, 1976), 39Google Scholar.

55 UIMM, Déposition devant la commission des assurances et de prévoyance sociale de la Chambre des députés et le Conseil Supérieur du Travail sur le projet de loi relatifaux assurances sociales, Archive of the Paris Chamber of Commerce, III. 5. 56 (9), 3.

56 Ibid., 13.

57 Arbeitgeberverbände, Vereinigung der Deutschen, Geschäftsbericht der Vereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände, 1925–1926 (Berlin: VDA, 1927), 136Google Scholar.

58 On the opposition of construction employers, see Lewek, Peter, Arbeitsloesigkeit und Arbeitslosenversicherung in der Weimarer Republik, 1918–1927 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1992), 157Google Scholar. On the opposition of cement producers, see Führer, Karl, Arbeitslosigkeit und die Entstehung derArbeitslosenversicherung in Deutschland, 1902–1927 (Berlin: Colloquim, 1990), 220Google Scholar.

59 Chambe r of Commerce of Belfort, Rapport sur le régime des assurances sociaks en préparation devant le Sénat, Archive of the Paris Chamber of Commerce, III. 5. 50 (9).

60 Handelskammer zu Altona, Entwurf eines Gesetzes über eine vorläufige Arbeitslosenver-sicherung, Zentrales Staatsarchiv Potsdam, Reichswirtschaftsrat, 664.

61 Deutscher Industrie- und Handelstag, Entwurf eines Gesetzes über die Arbeitslosenversicherung, Zentrales Staatsarchiv Potsdam, Reichsarbeitsamt 4311/87–88; Reichsverband des Deutschen Handwerks, Beiträge zu den Mitteln der Erwerbslosenfürsorge, Zentrales Staatsarchiv Potsdam, Reichsarbeitsministerium 1017.

62 For example, average rates of unemployment in Germany were 10.7 in metalworking, as compared with 0.3 in agriculture. See Drucksachen des Reichstages 2885, 3. Wahlperiode 1926. For France, see Salais, Robert et al. , L'invention du chdmag (Paris: PUF, 1986)Google Scholar.

63 Salaisetal. (fn. 62), 35.

64 Arbeitgeberverbände, Vereinigung der Deutschen, ed., Geschdftsbericht über dasjahr 1922 (Berlin: VDA, 1923), 35Google Scholar.

65 Ibid.

66 Vereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände, Denkschrift der VDA an das Reichsarbeitsministerium 1920, Zentrales Staatsarchiv Potsdam, Reichsarbeitsamt 4310/475.

67 See statements of associations representing agricultural producers quoted in Fiihrer (fn. 58), 324.

68 Ibid., 323.

69 Augé-Laribé (fn. 53), 109–17.

70 Vereinigung der Arbeitgeberverbande, Rundschreiben an den Bundesarbeitsminister Storch betrejfend der Selbstverwaltung in der Soziahersicherung, November 29, 1949, BDA Archive, Cologne.

71 Die Wirtschaft und die Deutsche Sozialversicherung, Archive of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Walter Auerbach Papers, 11/1, Box 207.

72 Chamber of Commerce of Paris, L'organisation de la Sécurité Sociale (Rapport Brossard), Archive of the Paris Chamber of Commerce, III. 5. 70 (1).

73 Ibid.

74 Chamber of Commerce of Paris, Un projet d'unification et d'etatisation des institutions de Sécurite Sociale, Archive of the Paris Chamber of Commerce, III. 5. 70 (1).

75 See Hilbert, Ernst, “Was erwarten die Arbeitgeber von der Neuordnung der deutschen Sozialversicherung?” Arbeitsblatt für die britische Besatzungszone 1 (1947), 285–87Google Scholar; BDA, ed., Einheitsversicherung widerlegt, Der Arbeitgeber, 1, 2, 17–19; BDA, ed., “Warum keine Einheitsversicherung?” Der Arbeitgeber (1949), 1, 3, 6–7.

76 Rapport Brossard (fn. 72), 9.

77 See Schieckel, Horst, ed., Gegenwartsprobleme der Soziahersicherung (Munich: Richard Pflaum, 1947)Google Scholar.

78 Arbeitsgemeinschaft der bayerischen Industrie- und Handelskammern an dem Bayerischen Landtag un an die Bayerische Staatsregierung und dem Herrn Ministerprasidenten Dr. Erhard, January 10, 1947, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Z1/947.

79 Landesarchiv Südwestdeutschland der gewerblichen Berufsgenossenschaften, April 18, 1946, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Z1/939.

80 Schieckel (fn. 77); see also Vereinigung der Industrie- und Handelskammern in der britischen Bestazungszone and das Hauptamt der Arbeitsverwaltung für die britische Zone, December 9, 1948, Rheinisch- Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv, Cologne, RWWA 22 800/00.

81 On these developments, see Surleau Commission, Rapport sur les travaux de la Commission d'Etudes nommée par la commission chargée d'étudier les modifications a apporter a la loi du 22 mai 1946 portant generalization de la Sécurité Sociale, Centre d'Archives Contemporaines, 1947, SS 07921, 760228, Box 45, Ministère du Travail et de Sécurité Sociale.

82 Die zwei Seiten der bauerlichen Altersversicherung, Archive of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Auerbach Papers, 240.

83 See Surleau Commission (fn. 81); and Zentralamt für Arbeit (Lemgo), Stellungnahme zur Begründung von Änderungen der geltenden Regelung der Handwerkerversicherung, 1948 Archive of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Auerbach Papers, 240.

84 Erklärung der Arbeitgebervertreter im Sozialpolitischen Ausschuss des Länderrats zum Gutachten der Sachverständigen der amerikanischen Zone über die Neuordnung der Sozialversicherung, in Schieckel (fn. 77), 122–27.

85 Arbeitgebervertreter (fn. 84).

86 This is the position of the representatives of the Conseil National du Patronat Français during the deliberations of an extraparliamentary commission (Surleau Commission) discussing these policy changes.

87 UIMM quoted in Guillemard, Anne-Marie, Le declin du social (Paris: PUF, 1986), 65Google Scholar.

88 Die zwei Seiten der bäuerlichen Altersversicherung (fn. 82); see also Stellungnahme der Landwirtschaft zur Sozialversicherung, n.d., Archive of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Auerbach Papers, Box 206.

89 Centre d'Archives Contemporaines, SS 07921, 760228, Box 45, Ministére du Travail et de Sécurité Sociale, 1947, Note résumant les entretiens avec les différentes organizations des travailleurs independents au sujet de la modification de la loi du 28 mai 1946.

90 Förderungen zur Altersversorgung des Handwerks, Archive of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, n.d., Walter Auerbach Papers, Box 240.

91 Surleau Commission (fn. 81). See also position of Bellanger, vice president of the Assemblee des Présidents des Chambres de Metiers en France, 1946 Archives Nationales, Commission du Travail, Premiere Assemblee Constituante, C 15293, 25. 6.

92 Thus, the empirical findings do not support the hypothesis suggesting that the most important variation in the social policy preferences of firms is a cross-national variation. Firms located in different political economies but having similar characteristics (in terms of size and incidence of risks) have supported similar social policies.

93 The framework developed in this article suggests that the “control” dimension of the social policy space is always distributionally divisive between capital and labor. By contrast, some sectors of the business community might share a common interest with labor-based associations about the level of social insurance coverage and the redistribution of costs across occupations (that is, along the risk redistribution dimension of the social policy space).