Daniel Levine

Conservatism and Tradition in Danish Social Welfare Legislation, 1890–1933: A Comparative View

Before Denmark finally achieved parliamentary democracy in 1901, it was already well on the way to becoming a thorough-going welfare state and was, until about the Second World War, a leader in developing the institutions and ideology of welfare capitalism. The contrast with the United States, where democratic political institutions are much older, but where welfare institutions have developed more slowly and in very different form, is striking. The two countries, of course, vary enormously in size and circumstances, but as with any industrializing nation, they have some things in common: cities, an urban poor, an organized demand for the passage of social welfare legislation. A comparative view may reveal aspects of each country in sharper perspective than an examination of either in isolation. The question is: How is it that welfare institutions were so much more intellectually available in Denmark than in the United States? The conclusion is that institutions of modern welfare capitalism in Denmark were designed to resemble as much as possible traditional pre-democratic-and pre-socialist-Danish institutions, and that the institutions were successful precisely because they did not require any break with historical continuity and fit so well into long-familiar traditions and habits of thought. Rather than emphasizing the differences between various groups and political parties, this article is an attempt to define the framework within which Danish social legislation was worked out;1 that is, the fundamental social assumptions which the various groups held in common. These ideas, moreover, remained essentially constant from the 1890s to the 1930s. Social legislation was particularly important at the beginning and end of the period, c. 1890-92 and c. 1924-33. There were no significant ideological changes from the early to the later period, so that both horizontally and vertically, as it were, one can speak of national values, or ideological foundations, or a fundamental mind-set which lay behind Danish social legislation 1890-1933. The reasons for interest in welfare questions during the economic crises 54