Of course the Soviet model drew it's blueprints from capitalist states' wartime planning, which were another matter entirely.
On Jun 18, 2009, at 7:28 PM, "James Heartfield" <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk
> wrote:
> 'Didn't they [the Germans] practically invent the modern welfare
> state?'
>
> I thought it was New Zealand that invented the modern welfare state.
>
> There was an excellent TV play on about fifteen years ago, by Alan
> Bennett, dramatising the early life of Franz Kafka, as a clerk
> administering the German compulsory health insurance, that makes the
> point gently, that the nightmare of pleading before the oddly
> informal authorities in The Trial, might be drawn from Kafka's own
> experience with the workers medical insurance board
>
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