Social Policy in Greece in the Interwar Period: Events, Conflicts, and Conceptual Transformations
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SGOXXX10.1177/215824401246149 4614911SAGE OpenNikolaidis and Sakellaropoulos 2012 SAGE Open October-December 2012: 1 –15 Social Policy in Greece in the Interwar © The Author(s) 2012 DOI: 10.1177/2158244012461491 Period: Events, Conflicts, and Conceptual http://sgo.sagepub.com Transformations George Nikolaidis1 and Spyros Sakellaropoulos2 Abstract This study gives an outline—by period—of the most basic social policy measures and health and welfare programs of the Venizelist political center. The periodization involves a breakdown of the above-mentioned policy into three separate phases whose distinguishing characteristics are then outlined—namely, the first period from 1910 to 1916 where the predominant feature is the attempt to develop a range of structures and services that might begin to try to cover the growing needs of the population of a geographically expanding Greece. In the second period between 1918 and 1920, this expansionist strategy of the social state would come to be regarded as too advanced by the Venizelist center itself, and on the basis of forms of social and political expression, including some previously developed inside the working class, attempts would be made to roll it back. In the third period between the years 1928 and 1932, which was to be marked by a greater sharpening of social conflict, the politics of the Liberals were to involve endeavors to carry out bourgeois modernization as a counter to the social crisis, efforts conducted in a spirit of pragmatism in a situation where a whole array of economic, social, and political parameters were limiting the potential for promoting implementable policy measures at that time. Moreover, in this final phase, all such social policy measures were characterized by obvious efforts to manipulate and control the political and social forms of organization of the popular classes. Starting from the above considerations, our analysis seeks to distinguish itself from views particularly prevalent among Greek politicians even today, as well as among sections of the electorate, that portray Venizelos as a representative of advanced social radicalism. But we also distinguish ourselves from those who regard him as an exponent of bourgeois modernization. Whereas the former view perceives Venizelos’ policies as part of a continuous linear course toward progress, the latter sees everything as the outcome of a bourgeois class strategy for modernization of economic and social processes. Both stances suffer from an inability to comprehend that social evolution develops unevenly, and above all is the product of social balances of forces that are overturned, modified, and transformed. Keywords social policy, Greece, interwar, venizelism, modernization Introduction defense of the interests of specific sections either of capital (private health care organizations and companies producing In this article, we shall attempt to show that the adoption of and dispensing medical and pharmaceutical products) or of the first forms of social welfare and health care policies by the broader social bloc of the dominant classes (including, the governments of Eleftherios Venizelos is merely one vari- for example, medical doctors). They also include pursuance ant of a general rule characterizing the developmental course of social control through regulation of the roles of the of the welfare state in capitalist countries; that is, it repre- “healthy” and the “sick” (Navarro, 1975, pp. 183-196; sents the historical transmutation of an institutional forma- Waitzkin & Waterman, 1974, pp. 36-64). The phenomenon is tion that is contradictory in terms of its social (class) content. thus contradictory: The contents of its functions are the result What we maintain is that social expenditures have a dual of and the starting point for social struggle (Gough, 1979). function. On one hand, they of course comprise gains of the dominated strata, the fruit of intense social struggles. But on the other hand, the state has managed, step by step, to incor- 1Institute of Child Health, Athens, Greece porate its own objectives, with the greater part of these 2Panteion University, Athens, Greece expenditures serving the needs of capital reproduction. Corresponding Author: Specifically, in the field of health, these goals embrace the Spyros Sakellaropoulos, Department of Social Policy, Panteion University, functions of regeneration of labor power, reducing the cost of Leoforos Syggroy 136, Athens 17671, Greece its reproduction in the case of public expenditure on health, Email: [email protected] Downloaded from by guest on June 4, 2016 2 SAGE Open Naturally, as will be understood, our position on the wel- Although the contradiction indicated above between the fare state and more concretely on the Venizelist political cen- reproductive utility for the ruling class within the capitalist ter is the corollary of our overall position on the role of the mode of production of the public health measures and the state in contemporary capitalism. Contrary to views inter- related popular demands and gains in many ways remains preting the state as a simple “neutral” instrument of class the most basic of the active contradictions within the social power and other conceptions that see it as a relation between policy measures, other secondary contradictions also coexist social classes, we present the state as the outcome of class with it, undergoing a parallel evolution. One of these is the struggle within a mode of production. The class identity of organic contradiction between the repressive and the protec- the state is inherent in its creation within each productive tive character of the policies under implementation. Thus, system—The latter is after all the matrix within which it as early as the beginning of the 19th century, when the first comes into existence. Thus, within the capitalist system, the manual of preventive medicine was published, J. P. Frank goal of the bourgeois state is to give long-term representa- (1780-1827) had clearly outlined the repressive character of tion to bourgeois class interests. The overall concern of the any likely intervention. “State power, as expression of the state is evidently not something static but continually takes general will of the community, bears the overall responsibil- account of modifications in the intrabourgeois power bal- ity for each concrete individual and should therefore maintain ance, the upgrading and downgrading of sections of capital, constant supervision of people from the cradle to the grave,” and the totality of expressions of class struggle. he says in his, in any case, most eloquently titled work, A Comprehensive Medical Police Force (Frank n.a.: 9). However, a number of organizations such as trade unions, local authori- General Outline of International ties, associations, and scientific bodies promoted the idea of Tendencies and Policies on Health, society as a whole being responsible for securing a healthy Welfare, and Social Policy After 1900 environment, particularly for the social classes for whom such an environment is a vital necessity (Bale, 1989). In this In the field of health, the inherently contradictory character historical period, the repressive aspect of social policy and of public health measures had become evident as early as the public health measures played a conspicuous role in shaping 19th century and indeed through the activity of outstanding dominant political orientations, particularly in the imperialist personalities from the world of bourgeois politics and from centers, which felt threatened by infectious and contagious the international academic community. Characteristically, on diseases, both in country areas and in the overseas posses- one hand, the founder of the cellular conception of the sions of the big European states. human organism and leader of the liberal opposition to Another secondary contradiction characterizing this Bismarck, R. Virchow, declared as early as the mid-19th period is the position of the medical profession and of the century that “the physician is the natural advocate of the hospital as a structure within the emerging health care sys- poor,” that “politics is medicine on a broader scale,” and that tem. It had already become evident from previous forms of “medicine is a social science” (Silver, 1987). On the other social organization that there is a special relationship between hand, Lord Balfour declared with revealing perspicacity in the medical profession and political and ecclesiastical power. 1895 that “social legislation is not just something different A. Gramsci (1949/1972) characteristically observes that from socialist legislation: It is the most effective antidote to it.” Similarly, in one of the first British manuals on workers’ between medicine and religion there have been, and medical problems, in 1925, there is an explicit (and pre- there continue to be, links in the form of certain orga- monitory) record of the remark that “chickens, racehorses, nizational functions, quite apart from the fact that circus monkeys, are fed, trained and kept at the peak of their wherever the doctor puts in an appearance, the priest physical abilities, so that the productivity of their particular also shows up. Many great religious personages were, functions will reward our efforts. The same principle applies and were considered, great healers; cf. the idea of the for human beings” (Rodberg & Stevenson, 1977, p. 112). miracle and resurrection of the dead. Even at the level This reparatory role of social policy