Origins of the French Welfare State

Poor Relief in the Third Republic, 1871-1914

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8940931
AutoresJohn Weiss (autor de correspondencia), John H Weiss (0000-0001-9323-7813)
Año1983
Volumen13
Número1
Páginas47-47
Fecha de publicación1983-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaFrench Historical Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0016-1071 • E-ISSN: 1527-5493
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/286593
OpenAlexW2317132501
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas22

Nowhere did Revolutionary France better reflect the generosity and optimism of the Enlightenment than in its social policies. If in some fields (such as education) these policies produced a limited number of real accomplishments, however, the First Republic's hopes for a new system of poor relief met almost complete frustration. Alan Forrest's recent study of the Revolution's impact upon the poor concludes that the implementation of a shift from Church-based charite to state-directed bienfaisance was an impossible goal. The economy of the 1790s could not produce the wealth required to support such a program; wars diverted available resources while further impoverishing families too poor to purchase substitutes for conscripted sons; the intensely localistic communities in the South and West remained impervious to appeals for national cooperation; and the Jacobin approach based on legislating in Paris surrendered the effectiveness of local flexibility for the ideological purity of uniformity. Revolutionary policy on poor relief assumed the administrative trappings of a modern state, a habit of national legislation, and a steady bureaucratic rhythm which were unknown in the eighteenth century and which were impossible to conjure up in the political turmoil of the Revolutionary decade.' Between 1871 and 1914, on the other hand, such obstacles were absent or disappearing. Warfare was confined to episodes in the colonies. The generations from Napoleon I to Napoleon III had accustomed France to a steady bureaucratic rhythm, pulsing from

Economic history · Political science · Poor relief · State (computer science · The Republic · Theology · Welfare · Welfare state · Computer Science · European Political History Analysis · French Historical and Cultural Studies · History · Law · Philosophy