ABSTRACT
This conclusion summarizes a few important assumptions about unemployment which affected policies aimed at alleviating the attendant problems. A reactionary strain manifested itself by portraying urbanization and industrialization as the twin sources of unemployment and Social Democracy as its primary beneficiary. During the Bismarckian era, many authors proceeded on the basis of a dual assumption—first, that sloth was the natural proclivity of the labor force and second, that it was easier to avert the formation of bad habits than to rehabilitate practiced offenders. Institutions for the prevention of idleness and begging ranging from the rather punitive labor houses to the voluntary labor yards, colonies, refuges and inns were products of this line of thinking. After the 1880's, the public showed an increased willingness to accept responsibility for unemployment and a tendency to remove the stigma attached to that condition. Finally, there was a two-fold benefit to policies of containment which ensured the continuation of a controlled level of unemployment.
