Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-07T22:11:55.841Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Part III - Social transition: state, society, individual and nation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2009

Michael Wintle
Affiliation:
University of Hull
Get access

Summary

Introduction

Revolutionary changes have occurred in social relations over the last two centuries, not least in the Netherlands. Collective society in the form of the state has become immensely powerful, reaching into every crevice of personal life, dictating what is acceptable behaviour in the home between parents and children, and in the workplace between employer and labour force. We have seen in Part II the state adopting a greater role in the economy throughout the nineteenth century, and will see here that it did so in social matters as well. Little of this social intervention was in place in 1800, and it was almost exclusively at local level; much of the writing was on the wall by 1914, as a function of central government. At the same time, while the state was expanding its influence over the lives of individuals, the latter were not entirely passive in the matter. Whereas only a tiny elite took part in political life at the start of the nineteenth century, nearly all the adult nation did so by 1919, and not only by voting: most people were by then ‘organized’ in one form or another. Voluntary participation in bodies with a public function grew with revolutionary rapidity in the nineteenth century, especially in its second half.

Type
Chapter
Information
An Economic and Social History of the Netherlands, 1800–1920
Demographic, Economic and Social Transition
, pp. 249 - 251
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×