Thread by @shrikanth_krish

There is a tendency among many commentators to think -

Welfare state ! = Conservative politics

But two of the early founders of the Welfare state in the West were -

Otto Von Bismarck
Winston Churchill

Both stellar conservative figures

Bismarck, we all know, was the founder of the modern German State in the 1860s/70s

And the architect of many early social legislations - including sickness / disability insurance as well as retirement pensions

He positioned it as "Practical Christianity"

Bismarck ofcourse disliked reforms like "unions" which had a socialistic aspect to them.

But he was open to the state offering cushion against the volatility inherent in a capitalistic society

He saw this as not just humane but also a bulwark against revolutionary impulses

Even the young Winston Churchill in the early 1900s was instrumental in pushing some of the earliest measures in favor of minimum wage, unemployment insurance

And nobody can say Churchill was a socialist or a radical

In fact a discussion on Churchill's reformist impulses early in his career can be found in this lecture by Vernon Bogdanor

This doesn't mean I approve of a large welfare state

My limited point is -

Using social legislations as a cushion to fight against the more radical impulses in society and preseving social cohesion is not new to political conservatives

There's nothing deeply radical about it

With Modi you see exactly the same impulses that animated Bismarck and Churchill

A desire to provide social insurances and support in a fiscally prudent way through efficient delivery systems that can ensure social cohesiveness in an otherwise deeply fractured society