why the welfare state?

The government “should cultivate the view also among the propertyless classes of the population, those who are the most numerous and the least educated, that the state is not only an institution of necessity but also of welfare. By recognisable and direct advantages they must be led to look upon the state not as an agency devised solely for the protection of the better-situated classes of society but also as one serving their needs and interests.”

In this 1881 statement, Otto von Bismarck, Germany 's chancellor was providing a rationale for a welfare state: a means to pacify the lower classes and secure the Kaiser's rule.