1 The general approach continues the historical tradition of classical sociology, especially as it was revived in the work of Elias, Norbert, The Civilizing Process, (1939), 2 vols, Oxford, Blackwell, 1978, 1981;Google Scholar it also borrows from the ideas on collective goods in welfare economics, (esp. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action; Public goods and the theory of groups, Cambridge, Mass. and London, Harvard UP, 1965) and on dilemmas of conflict and co‐operation as elaborated in game theory (e.g., Anatol Rapoport, N‐person Game Theory; Concepts and applications, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1970).

2 The transition from mutual funds at the level of families, parishes, and fellow‐workers to the contemporary nation‐wide social insurance bureaucracies under state control provides an example of this ‘unfolding process’; cf. Sigfrid FrÖlich, Die Soriale Sicherung bei Zünfteen und Gesellenverbänden; Darstellung, Analyse, Vergleich, Berlin, Duncker & Humboldt, 1976 — a systematic comparison of guild and social insurance systems — esp. the conclusion, pp. 266–7.

3 Cf. Swan, Abram De De Mens is de Mens een Zorg; Opstellen 1971–1981, Amsterdam, Meulenhoff, 1982, pp. 31–50.Google Scholar

4 One important difference between the ancient guilds and the workers’ mutual societies is compulsory versus voluntary membership, with all the paradoxes of collective action that go with the latter. For a discussion of continuity and innovation from the Ancien Régirne to the compagnonnages and mutual aid societies of the Republican era in France, see Sewell, William H. ‘Property, Labor, and the Emergence of Socialism in France, 1789–1848’ in Merriman, J.M. (ed), Consciousness and Class‐experience in Nineteenth‐century Europe, New York and London, Holmes & Meier, 1979, esp. pp. 55–8.Google Scholar

5 Similar developments occur in contemporary African towns; cf. Banton, Michael ‘Voluntary Associations’, Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, 16, New York and London, Macmillan and Free Press, 1968; pp. 360–1.Google Scholar

6 Barry Supple, ‘Legislation and Virtue: An essay on working‐class self‐help and the state in the early nineteenth century’ in McKendrick, N. (ed), Historical Perspectives; studies in English thought and society (essays in honour of J.H. Plumb), London, Europa publ., 1974, p. 215: ‘in 1851 the male population aged 15 or over was about 5.7 million’. For France see A. Weber, à Travers la Mutualité; étude critique sur les sociétés de secours mutuels, Paris, Rivire, 1908, p. 29. For Prussia see Florian Tennstedt, Sozialgeschichte der Sozialpolitik in Deutschland; Vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg, GÖttingen, Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1981, p. 113.Google Scholar

7 Verdoorn, J.A. Het Gezondheidswezen te Amsterdam in de 19e Eeuw, Nijmegen, SUN, 1981, p. 169.Google Scholar

8 In France, the ‘Mutualité’ has survived the advent of social insurance as a federation of co‐operative and voluntary insurance schemes for supplementary benefits (among other provisions), steadily growing in numbers to 13 million in 1964. Cf. Romain Lavielle, Histoire de la Mutualité; Sa place duns le régime français de Sécurité Sociale, Paris, Hachette, 1964.

9 Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working‐class, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1980, pp. 457, 458.Google Scholar

10 The expression is Norbert Elias’s, cf. op. cit.

11 E.g. Gilbert, Bentley B. ‘The Decay of Nineteenth‐Century Provident Institutions and the Coming of Old Age Pensions in Great Britain’, The Economic History Review, 2nd series, 27, 1, 08 1964, pp. 551–563, esp. pp. 553–8.Google Scholar

12 Cf. Smelser, Neil J. Social Change in the Industrial Revolution, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959, pp. 360–1.Google Scholar

13 E.g. Treble, James H. ‘The Attitudes of Friendly Societies Towards the Movement in Great Britain for State Pensions, 1878–1908’, International Review of Social History, 25, 1970, pp. 266–299, esp. pp. 268–9.Google Scholar

14 The sick funds of the German trade unions for ideological reasons did accept union members who had not passed ‘the narrow gate’ of the medical test for the ‘free’ sick funds; cf. SchÖnhoven, Klaus ‘Selbsthilfe als Form von Solidarität; Das gewerkschaftliche Unterstützungswesen im Deutschen Kaiserreich bis 1914’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 20, 1980, pp. 147–193, esp. p. 181.Google Scholar

15 Cf. for the English Friendly Societies’ Act of 1875, P.H.J.H. Gosden, Self‐help; Voluntary associations in the 19th century, London, Batsford, 1973, pp. 77 et seq.

16 Cf. Supple, op cit., pp. 233–5.Google Scholar

17 Cf. Smelser, op. cit., p. 369.Google Scholar

18 Cf. Gauldie, Enid Cruel Habitations; A history of working‐class housing 1780–1918, London, Allen & Unwin, 1974, pp. 196–207.Google Scholar

19 Cf. for England, Stephen Yeo, ‘Working‐class Association, Private Capital, Welfare and the State in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, in Parry, Noel Rustin, Michael and Satyamurti, Carole (eds), Social Work, Welfare and the State, London, Arnold, E. 1979, pp. 48–71, esp. pp. 58 et seq.Google Scholar

20 Especially in England, the friendly societies, often of a conservative hue, tended to oppose social insurance and pension legislation out of fear of becoming superfluous: ‘Their basic pre‐occupation had always been to safeguard their own well‐being,’ writes Treble, op. cit., p. 268. Cf. also Gilbert, op. cit., p. 558. Lavielle, op. cit., paints a very rosy picture of the collaboration between the ’Mutualité’ and state insurance in his more than sympathetic account of the ’mutualiste’ movement. FrÖlich, op. cit., p. 268, suggests that social insurance came to Germany so early, because the strong and lasting guild tradition of mutual aid made for an ‘almost seamless transition’.

21 Cf. Swaan, Abram de ‘Reformatie van de Verzorging’ in Halverwege de Heilstaat, Amsterdam, Meulenhoff, 1983, pp. 19–36.Google Scholar