ABSTRACT
The inadequacies of the workmen’s compensation laws to cover needs created by the disabling effects of sickness led the German Reich to consider the more comprehensive measure of health insurance. Weimar welfare facilitated the socialization of health which prioritized the goals of the social hygiene movement, focusing on the prevention of chronic disease, the health of mothers and children and combating psychiatric disorders. German compulsory social insurance nevertheless forced the French state into re-evaluating its voluntarist policies in social welfare. Lloyd George hoped to retain democratic participation in state social insurance by having it administered through the friendly societies. A new organic vision of society supported a larger role for the state in undertaking collective responsibility for welfare in numerous European societies. The sequence of bureaucratization and democratization has been critical to the process of state formation. In most European states, state bureaucratization preceded democratization.
