Eighty years after its creation, Social Security still embodies the dynamic of building a solidarity-based social system. The UCL (Union of Workers) is campaigning to free Social Security from the control of the State. Let's demand direct management by workers, based on contributions! In this first article, our working group addresses the dynamics and logic behind the development of Social Security. ---- In 1945, at the end of the war, the political and social balance of France was disrupted. The French bourgeoisie emerged weakened and largely discredited by its collaboration with the Vichy regime. Conversely, workers' organizations enjoyed strong legitimacy. In this context, a new institution was born and established itself: Social Security. It is not simply an administrative reform or a supplement to social protection, but a major project of political rupture with the dominant economic logic. The basic needs of the population are met and managed collectively. Funding is achieved through the pooling of a portion of the value produced by workers. This collective management, which initially covers illness, accidents and work incapacity, old age, and family emergencies, constitutes a genuine power struggle against the profit-driven logic of the capitalist economy.
The class struggle embodied by Social Security
The project pits a segment of the labor movement, which conceptualizes the socialization of wealth and the economic independence of the proletariat, against conservative forces, which seek to limit this dynamic in order to preserve the structures conducive to capitalism. Decisions are made in an exclusively male political sphere, reflecting patriarchal power dynamics.
In this power struggle, the universality of the project is undermined by both the petty and upper classes. Craftsmen, shopkeepers, and professionals refused to share their comfortable incomes in a common fund with lower-income workers. Between 1947 and 1950, with state support, some professional mutual insurance companies were transformed into "Special Schemes"[1]and new schemes were established[2]. The 1947 agreements created the General Association of Retirement Institutions for Managers. This gradual fragmentation of the system undermined the principle of solidarity.
Caption: "A hospital not for 100 people, but for millions!"
Credits: UCL Marseille
The healthcare sector was another source of tension. Doctors, mostly in private practice at the time, perceived the self-management of the system as a political threat. Many saw this model as a "communist" drift and refused to participate. Much of the healthcare system therefore remains structured around private practices, even though a substantial public hospital system continues to play a central role in access to care.
Faced with these adversaries, workers organize and implement the decrees legitimizing the new institution. Workers' organizations hold inter-professional elections and establish the boards of directors for the departmental funds of the General Social Security Scheme. Health and prevention services open in public spaces, businesses, and schools. Gradually, a modern public hospital system develops, surpassing the old charitable hospices and private clinics reserved for the wealthiest.
The emerging logic profoundly alters the relationship to wealth. Unlike profit, social contributions are not used for private capital investments, but for the collective management of the proletariat's basic needs. Thus, the system shifts from the logic of an individual wage to that of a socialized wage. The general social security system thus demonstrates that a portion of social production can be extracted from capitalist hegemony.
Over the decades, the balance of power has gradually shifted in favor of employers, in a context marked by major economic crises and the restructuring of capitalism. This shift opens the door for both employers and the state to go on the offensive. Individual responses take precedence over collective solutions. Private practice medicine is strengthened in this movement, without, however, eliminating the structuring role of the public hospital. Home-based childcare and maternal assistance develop at the expense of group daycare centers, and individual retirement savings products[3]emerge...
A model to be expanded
The exponential deterioration of Social Security has revived debates and the search for a new dynamic around the socialization model established within the general scheme. Questions are being raised about extending this model to new areas. Health, old age, and family are no longer sufficient to guarantee individuals' material autonomy. Technological advancements make access to energy essential, the ecological crisis threatens access to food and mobility, disability and dependency are becoming central issues, and media dependence brings the right to information to the forefront. The radical left is prioritizing the coverage of new needs: access to electricity and heating as universal rights, and the collective organization of food production to guarantee food supplies for all. A social security system for culture and media would guarantee access to information and creative expression while limiting both dependence on private capital and forms of state control or interference.
Caption: "Fewer armored vehicles and helicopters, more hospital beds"
Credits: UCL Marseille
Alongside this expansion, the question of economic, but also social, power dynamics arises. Feminist debates remind us that reproductive labor, such as caregiving, education, and the maintenance of daily life, plays a central role in wealth creation but often remains invisible and devalued because it is "unpaid." Anti-racist struggles, for their part, reveal the dimension of colonial history in inequalities of access to rights. Our social model therefore requires a revision of economic activities and a guarantee of equal access to rights, regardless of gender, origin, or social status.
Finally, to preserve the integrity of this solidarity economy model, the decision-making processes for managing production require profound transformation. Self-management is a means of subverting current institutions to return decision-making to the collective.
UCL Social Security Working Group
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[1]Some were created during the years of the Vichy government's "Labor Charter," such as the Clerks' Retirement and Provident Fund (CRPC).
[2]The Agricultural Social Mutual Fund, the National Old-Age Insurance Fund for Craftsmen, the National Autonomous Old-Age Insurance Organization for Industry and Commerce, and the National Old-Age Insurance Fund for the Liberal Professions.
[3]The Fillon laws established the individual retirement savings products PERP and PERCO, which are marketed by banking and insurance companies whose tax treatment allows the amounts saved to be deducted from the calculation of contributions.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Quatre-vingt-ans-de-la-Secu-La-Securite-Sociale-une-breche-dans-l-ordre
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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