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Henry George's land reform ideas became known in Germany not through his writing or speaking but through the efforts of Michael Flurscheim, an industrialist and pioneer social reformer, who first presented those ideas to the public. The American's idea that the land value tax was the only legitimate source of government revenue as the only economic surplus had found no acceptance among German socialist leaders. It was a capitalist, Flurscheim, who was inspired by George's theories and wrote and spoke about them. Flurscheim brought about the foundation of the first German land reform organization. Though it failed, a successor became the largest such association in the world.

Women's studies in Germany was established as a result of the furtherance of the women's movement. It is a product of the women's desire for social equality which is yet to be achieved despite seeming gender equality in this progressive industrialized society. Being thus, women'sstudies themes are rooted on the women's movement and is focused on the subjectof understanding the female's status and the cause of inequality and discrimination inherent in gender relations.

The women's studies in Eastand West Germany sprang from the growth of women's movement. Unlike other countries, however, its continued growth have not been associated with higher education. Although women's studies have greatly contributed to the promotion of research and innovations among various fields, no satisfactory organizational structure holds such sector together leaving it in a very fragile state. Unless such problem is addressed then the discipline will continue to be threatened by various political, economic and social implications of the German unification process.

As the United States' public discussion of euthanasia and assisted suicide grows increasingly volatile, our interest in the Netherlands - the only country that openly permits the practice of euthanasia [...]

It's no longer the Canadian healthcare system that's the darling of Washington policymakers. After years of touting its virtues, politicians are facing up to the fact that Uncle Sam couldn't [...]

East German women are paying a heavy price in the area of feminist rights and employment as a result of German reunification. While East German women suffered from a mere 8.8% unemployment rate in Sep 1989, they comprised 54.7% of the Germany's unemployed in Feb 1991. Likewise, women's involvement in policy formation processes has dropped considerably. Whereas in the past, women were regarded as equal partners with men in the struggle for progress, the women of unified Germany are threatened by the possibility of being forced back into domestic servitude and other stereotyped roles.

German unification has served to divide Germany's feminists and has also proven detrimental to the socio-political and economic advancements formerly enjoyed by East German women. As a result of unification, the unemployement rate for women reached 60% in Mar 1991. Women's social supports are expected to diminish further as free childcare is being abolished and job protection and welfare for single mothers will end on Dec 31, 1993.

Until recently, philosophers in the German-speaking countries have for the most part neither worked on nor published about normative questions in modern medicine and biotechnology. Only some twenty years after [...]

Germany must deal with the challenges involved in adapting its social security system as a result of the aging of the population. Changes in the public pension system after 1992 are discussed.

Although the Canadian health care system is often proposed as a model for health care reform in the United States, other models should also be considered. In the Netherlands and in Germany, for example, health care 'rights' are less an issue than 'obligations' that bind the participants. The first obligation is that of physicians, hospitals and other providers to provide necessary, but not unlimited, medical care for all patients, regardless of their ability to pay. Patients are obligated to pay for the care they receive, through an obligation to purchase insurance, which employers are obligated to help their employees obtain. Medical care providers are obligated to accept insurance fees, and insurers are obligated to accept all low- and moderate-income applicants. In the Netherlands, individuals must purchase insurance through regional funds from which no eligible person can be excluded. The Exceptional Medical Expenses Act covers long-term care, maternal aid and child health services, as well as care of physical and mental retardation for all, thereby excluding these expensive coverages from the private insurance system. It is funded by the government, employers and contributions from the self-employed. Patients choose their primary care physician, who recommends hospital-based specialists when necessary. Specialists only care for patients during the acute phase of the illness. The German system is based on the same values as the Dutch system, but there is a greater variety of funds and a higher income cutoff point for obligatory membership. These models may be closer to US values than the Canadian, British, and Swedish systems. Four specific lessons for future policy are discussed, and a model of a health system based on American values is proposed. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

This paper focuses on the cultural aspects of new housing in the 1920s, especially on the large housing estates such as Berlin-Britz or Frankfurt-Westhausen. These housing estates played the role of prototypes and models for the possible development of society and more or less illustrated trends of dealing with modernity in general. After surveying the financing and construction of new housing in Germany and Austria, the context of Social Democratic housing policy is discussed. On the one hand, 'good housing' was regarded as a means of compensation for 'the bad world of labour'; on the other, it was embedded in the Social Democratic strivings to edify people (Kultursozialismus). Ennobling efforts aimed at a 'clean modernity', and were directed towards upgrading and modernizing people's taste and behaviour and rationalizing and hygienizing the everyday life of the tenants, as well as professionalizing women's housework. Comparing the German Social Democratic cultural strivings on the housing estates with those in Vienna, there is a striking difference to be seen between the political culture cultivated in Red Vienna and that developed on many new German housing estates. Furthermore, ties were loosened between the well-paid skilled workers moving into the new German housing estates on the edge of the cities and the mass of the working class mostly living in the centres of the cities or in older working-class neighbourhoods. For the former group this did not mean a separation from the workers' movement but a leap into cultural fragmentation of the working class itself.

The already heated debate in Germany about migration from poor EU countries could flare up again following a recent decision by a social court in Dortmund to grant welfare to [...]