bismarck

Fun coincidence: Bismarck implemented the first welfare state in the history of the world, with sickness, accident and disability insurance and old age pension.

And yes - Bismarck was generally considered a conservative as well.

By that time, Bismarck had been dead for 18 years.

As Bismarck said, politics is the art of the possible.

There is some debate over whether the Bismarck was sunk by torpedoes at all, or if it was sunk by scuttling charges installed by the crew.

Indeed - but Bismarck casts a long shadow.

By that standard, Bismarck was a socialist.

That is why Otto von Bismarck wanted the newly established Empire to stay out of any conflicts (and this is why he got fired by the more aggressive Wilhelm II).

Of course, the French were very aware of both of those eras, given that Napoleon was dominant until he eventually couldn't stop expanding, and Moltke and Bismarck overran France and proclaimed the German Unification in Versailles.

In fact, Germany initially set age 70 as the retirement age (and Bismarck himself was 74 at the time) and it was not until 27 years later (in 1916) that the age was lowered to 65.

In the short term it may seem like Firefox can be ignored to a degree, but in the long term Mozilla is the Bismarck that keeps web standards moving forward in ways that are seen as beneficial to a majority of the vendors at the table.

Is there something you particularly like about the Swiss system, or do you like the Bismarck model [1] in general, which they use (as does Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, and much of Latin America), and are simply using them as a good example of that model?

The Wikipedia page refers to Bismarck as a "revolutionary conservative".

The "Ein Volk!" were the "socia" in National Socialism, reusing the Goethe-und-Wagner nationalism from the Bismarck era.

Well, it made sense while I was typing it:) I think you're probably right because "socialist" had a different meaning in a post-Bismarck Germany.

"Politics is the art of the possible." — Otto von Bismarck (attributed) When one side is opposing a plan it originated, how can anyone make progress?

Note that, in Bismarck's time, life expectancy was about 55: One persistent myth about the German program is that it adopted age 65 as the standard retirement age because that was Bismarck's age.

That's one of the reasons Bismarck, a real expansionary conquerer type himself, introduced the culture of social services to Prussian Austria.

Austria has one of the longest traditions of social services in Europe - Otto von Bismarck, Prussian Chancellor, was huge on it.