Dalle poor laws alla assicurazione sociale: dimensioni amministrative e proiezioni europee

This article highlights the English administrative dimension of the Old Poor Law in the contexts of the seventeenth and eighteen-century State, in addition to the characteristics of the nineteenth-century New Poor Law. By analysing the interplay between laissez-faire and increasing administrative centralization, along with the relationship between legal individualism and emerging social legislation, some common trends in the European scenario are underscored, thus showing a path leading to Bismarckian social insurance and comprehensive twentieth-century developments.