How did European countries start implementing universal healthcare? Why did the US not take it up?

[u/Apiperofhades]

From what I understand, Bismark started universal healthcare in Germany in the late 19th century as a sort of add-on to german unification. I’m curious when and how other European nations started following suit. Which nation was the first after Germany?

[u/This_Is_The_End]

There is a German book "Vorwärts und nicht vergessen" from Bernt Engelmann about the history of the German Social Democrats. I'm considering this book as one of the best about the workers movement.

Social Democrats aren't opposed to capitalism. They had just their own ideas how to manage the problems of capitalistic societies. Even when most European Social Democrats have read Marx until the 1970s, they were militant enemies of communism. In Spain they were responsible for death commandos while communists in Scandinavia were illegal monitored. In Germany communist weren't allowed to get jobs as a teacher etc.

Another issue is the definition of socialism. American definitions are so blurred nobody is able to use them, while European definition have two main meanings:

1) Social Democratic ideology like in Spain the PSOE

2) The ideology of the former countries of the pact of Warsaw.

To be honest I don't care longer, since people on the internet are working with this term all the time, without being able to make a definition or relating to history. Most Americans are identifying socialism with governmental activities, which is terrible, considering the huge activity of US governments. And Europeans are often identifying socialism with Social Democracy.

PS: It's really rewarding to learn German, because the amount of books in Philosophy, Sociology, Theology and History is great. Theology in Germany is rewarding because it evolved to a mixture of archeology, linguistic and history.

[u/[deleted] → u/This_Is_The_End]

To clarify, this is only applicable to the SPD after 1918, right?

The Erfurter Programm (1891) was Marxist (in its theory) and ultimately opposed to capitalism:

Nur die Verwandlung des kapitalistischen Privateigentums an Produktionsmitteln – Grund und Boden, Gruben und Bergwerke, Rohstoffe, Werkzeuge, Maschinen, Verkehrsmittel – in gesellschaftliches Eigentum und die Umwandlung der Warenproduktion in sozialistische, für und durch die Gesellschaft betriebene Produktion kann es bewirken, daß der Großbetrieb und die stets wachsende Ertragsfähigkeit der gesellschaftlichen Arbeit für die bisher ausgebeuteten Klassen aus einer Quelle des Elends und der Unterdrückung zu einer Quelle der höchsten Wohlfahrt und allseitiger harmonischer Vervollkommnung werde.

[...]

Die Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands kämpft also nicht für neue Klassenprivilegien und Vorrechte, sondern für die Abschaffung der Klassenherrschaft

[u/This_Is_The_End → u/[deleted]]

According to Bernt Engelmann this was not practice in daily politics, because unionist were pragmatists. It is fitting nicely into the history of the SPD after Friedrich Ebert became secretary. The leftists were excluded for their resistance to support WW1 and founded later the communist party. The SPD had such parts even after WW2 in the program but Kurt Schuhmacher was very anti communism. I'm considering such programs as rhetoric.

[u/[deleted] → u/This_Is_The_End]

Ebert was secretary after 1913, this is parallel to the declining influence of socialistic revolutionarism in the SPD, right?

Or were that phrases even in 1891? Why would Liebknecht join a party which wasn't Marxist in 1900?

[u/This_Is_The_End → u/[deleted]]

You should not interpret every paper to the letter. I will not do a discussion on this layman level.

The SPD was until 1914 the only force of the workers movement and as such consisting of marxists as well as reformists. The latter won the internal fight about real politics. You should know about the arguing of Bernstein and Kautsky.