Technologies of trust: actuarial theory, insurance sciences, and the establishment of the welfare state in Germany and Switzerland around 1900

Abstract

The article analyzes the relation between transformations in information systems and changing forms of organization. Drawing on a historical case study, it examines the rise of actuarial theory in Germany and Switzerland around 1900 and its significance for the emergence of the first modern social insurances. So far, the history of actuarial theory has been written as the social history of the actuarial profession or the epistemic history of probability calculus. By examining the political and economic contexts of the history of actuarial theory, the article also discusses the notion of an “insurance society”. The argument concludes that Foucauldian interpretations of actuarial theory as a technology of power and a condition of modern governmentality are too monistic and should be specified. The article suggests to use the concept of a “technology of trust” to interpret the integrative power of actuarial theory in a political field marked by deep antagonisms.