BEYOND THE WELFARE STATE: PART III SWEDEN: PARADISE IN TROUBLE
Himmelstrand, Ulf
For over 40 years, ever since Marquis Childs wrote that best-selling book, Sweden has been known as the land of the Middle Way, which was slowly but consistently moving from a backward state...
...Simultaneously, the growing transnational market of commodities and capital significantly reduces the ability of society and state to influence and control the effects of their intervention...
...But even when the capitalist order, intelligently controlled by the state, operates reasonably well both in terms of growth and of distribution, and by improving the standards of living for most of the population, as it did for many postwar decades in Sweden, new contradictions emerge...
...But they have increasingly asked for other things as well: legislated authority to control health hazards at work, workers' codetermination, and worker-controlled capital funds that would give labor an increasing power over capital accumulation and investment...
...copies each issue during preceding 12 months-1,250...
...1 certify that the statements made by me above are correct and complete...
...We also asked questions about more "traditional" working-class identification...
...Stanley Plastrik, Business Manager...
...Forces opposing or trying to constrain structural changes in a socialist direction are certainly also considerable in Sweden, but they are less united...
...Actual no...
...e., the use of state intervention within the context of a so-called mixed economy—their "social-liberalism" could be pressed much more consistently and energetically than the bourgeois social-liberals would have dared undertake, given their ideological hang-ups regarding the role of the state...
...Among other things, SAF demanded revisions in the legislated system of income benefits during illness, and of legislated provisions on working and vacation time...
...Of course, the existence of working-class organizations as social facts is obvious to everyone...
...But they do exhibit an awareness of the structural threats of capitalism as frequently as industrial workers...
...copies each issue during preceding 12 months-6,600...
...The business community demonstrated its perception of self-interest by supporting bourgeois political parties, which eventually 118 displaced the Social Democratic government...
...In the second stage, the main issues were economic growth and social welfare redistribution...
...Problem - Solving in Business and Government FOR SEVERAL DECADES, the Swedish business community collaborated reasonably well with the Social Democratic government...
...Traditionally, these matters had been outside the accepted range of collective bargaining...
...The election results rocked progressive confidence that Sweden was on the right road to Utopia...
...Whatever the case, my point is that this "periodization" of Social Democratic history 125 is itself an indication of a changing ideological mood within the party...
...Certain changes, such as workers' control of capital accumulation and investment, can be realized while we still are part of this international capitalist order...
...I see the following scenario: The business community is torn between its dependence on an interventionist state and its internal needs to minimize private costs and maintain or increase its profitability...
...10017...
...Even those who reject deterministic prognostications about the socialist transforMost of the research underlying this article was financed by a grant from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation...
...In accordance with the provisions of this statute, I hereby request permission to mail the publication named in Item I at the phased postage rates presently authorized by 39 U.S.C...
...This proposal explores the possibilities of gradually transferring company profits to a capital fund controlled collectively by the trade unions...
...This double focus within the tradeunion movement will require organizational innovations yet to be formulated in a way that will satisfy democratic criteria, articulate opposing interests, and still assure efficiency in production...
...As productive forces grow they become increasingly international in character...
...Rather, it is linked to the objective nature of the work situation, as well as to the degree of unionization...
...Most of the piecemeal problems mentioned earlier derive from this basic problem of modern capitalism...
...Lewis Coser, 505 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...rapidly rising prices for food and services...
...Comparative sociological surveys— most notably by the Finnish sociologist Erik Allardt and the British sociologist Richard Scase—support the conclusion that the Swedish citizenry, beneficiaries of a high level of social welfare, remain more aware than most others of the continuing problems of inequity, injustice, and class contradiction...
...Who Is Losing Ground...
...Some less hawkish and more pragmatic business leaders may be aware of the hazards in allowing business criteria to show themselves in this naked and brutal manner...
...There are also more specific processes of internal and external contradiction unfolding as we take a closer look at concrete aspects of the modern capitalist economy: the competitive market, the interventionist state, and the incentive behavior of investors and labor...
...But at the same time, lower whitecollar strata are being "proletarianized," which may compensate for the decreasing proportion of industrial workers...
...There is no evidence to support such a prediction...
...E. Total Distribution (Sum of C and D): Average no...
...The same union leaders who officially condemn wildcat strikes have privately condoned them as significant reactions to underlying problems...
...copies of single issue published nearest to filing date345...
...There is, to be sure, a precise class content in Marxist analysis that is absent in corresponding liberal notions...
...in fact, it is not...
...Monetary incentives are no longer seen as sufficient...
...They may also anticipate the forceful reprisals to be expected from the powerful Swedish trade-union movement, and from the Social Democratic party if it is returned to governmental power in the 1979 general elections...
...Among proposals for new legislation, one in particular deserves attention, since it may bring about more profound changes in the relationship between capital and labor, at least if the Social Democratic party is returned to power in 1979...
...Our place in the international capitalist economy is not so easily resolved...
...Incentives for speculative and unproductive investments in art collections, diamonds, luxury houses, and idle land are often displacing productive investments in industry...
...copies each issue during preceding 12 months-6,600...
...Outcomes" of industry in activity such as variations in productivity, capital-intensity and related employment levels, and in the production of negative byproducts (such as environmental effects) impose wide-ranging consequences on society as a whole...
...These, however, do not adequately reflect the fact that the broad masses of employees have been paying heavily for the slight overall improvements...
...F. Copies not Distributed...
...But such pragmatism leads nowhere—except perhaps to a strategy of muddling through, which may work for a while in politics but will breed further stagnation in economic life...
...10017...
...Several statistical analyses of the 1976 election establish beyond doubt that the outcome rested on a single issue—the question of nuclear power...
...copies each issue during preceding 12 months-5,345...
...They see in them, off the record to be sure, hopeful signs of worker mobilization and sources of strength, a collective resource to be tapped in future union work...
...10017...
...The purchasing power of the public grew while inflation was contained at a reasonable rate...
...Some Marxists realize that this exploitation no longer can be defined exclusively, or even predominantly, as an appropriation of surplus value...
...Under this definition, about three-quarters of all those gainfully employed in Sweden would be counted as part of the working class...
...The only incentive they offer—monetary reward—no longer functions quite the way it did...
...Sweden may exhibit some of them to a lesser extent than some other highly developed capitalist countries, but that is not crucial...
...Those who hold a structuralist interpretation of power may argue, however, that even if labor hypothetically achieves majority decision-making power, under capitalist relations of production, this could not significantly influence the movement of capital in the capital market...
...117 mations of capitalist societies as propounded by orthodox Marxists might possibly find, in this interpretation of the socialist potential of late capitalism, a basis for a theoretically and empirically meaningful analysis of the Swedish situation...
...The crucial fact is that Sweden, in spite of its extensive efforts to tackle most of these problems, is still unable to achieve real success in solving them—except, perhaps, in a few areas such as water pollution...
...There is no alternative to squarely facing the issues at stake, and allowing them to be articulated in political debate...
...Close collaboration with working-class organizations in other countries is therefore essential...
...The party was under heavy pressure 124 from below, particularly from the trade unions, and it certainly proved itself responsive to these demands...
...Moreover, the collaboration between TCO, the federation of whitecollar unions, and LO has become more and more intimate in recent years...
...Actual no...
...Certainly, the percentage of industrial workers is decreasing...
...The rise of a new generation of union leaders is significant in this respect...
...copies each issue during preceding 12 months-800...
...Editors: Irving Howe, 505 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...B. Annual Subscription Price: $10.00...
...of Issues Published Annually: Four...
...Business reacted swiftly to the new political situation...
...Actual no...
...for instance, acts on board representation for employees in joint stock companies, on management obligations to report on certain planning matters to trade unions, on greatly expanded powers for union-appointed safety stewards, on employment security, on the right of trade-union representatives to carry on union business at the workplace, and on the negotiability of most issues (which previously were the prerogative of management) within a scheme of workers' codetermination...
...However strange this may seem, the basic contradictions of Swedish capitalism would be dealt with less effectively by a bourgeois than by a Social Democratic government...
...We found that clerical workers with lower levels of skill, these new entrants into the extended working class, do not identify themselves as readily with the labor movement and the working class as will industrial workers...
...Social Democratic historians now describe the development of the Swedish party in three periods...
...On the other hand, the labor-controlled capital funds proposed by LO, TCO, and the Social Democratic party may significantly reduce the role of the capital market in capital accumulation and investment and may also help to reduce the contradiction of capital and labor...
...As long as there is a capital market, the movement of capital will be subject to market mechanisms and not to democratic decision-making...
...Now that this combination of capitalism, state interventions, and union collaboration seems to have reached its limits in negotiating the uphill stretch of economic policy, it is not too difficult for Social Democrats to change gears...
...The capital market is a structural arrangement that, among other things, separates capital and labor into different spheres of operation...
...Sweden was one of the first to introduce state intervention, first to fight the business cycles and, later, to mitigate market imperfections...
...The largely unused reservoirs of power, knowledge, and drive in the trade unions will be able to assert themselves in a new combination of labor and state collaboration once the Social Democrats recover their government posts...
...After further electoral defeats of the bourgeois political parties, they will pragmatically decide that "if you can't beat them, join them...
...Conjunctural swings in values related to leisure-time consumption are unlikely to affect this degree of social conciousness...
...Progressive liberal economists make an important distinction between the concept of business economics that emphasizes only private costs and benefits, and a broader concept of economics that embraces social or societal costs and benefits...
...For over 40 years, ever since Marquis Childs wrote that best-selling book, Sweden has been known as the land of the Middle Way, which was slowly but consistently moving from a backward state toward its present position as the most developed of all welfare societies...
...Several studies have suggested that a majority of Swedish employees, including the lesser paid, just a few years ago were less interested in increasing their private consumption than in improving the quality of working life and safeguarding an environment threatened by industrial pollution...
...F. Location of the Headquarters of General Business Offices of the Publishers: 505 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...As the unprecedented postwar years of economic growth and widespread affluence are grinding to a halt, other contradictions of the capitalist order emerge, especially as the puzzle of stagflation remains unsolved...
...9. For Completion by Nonprofit Organizations Authorized to Mail at Special Rates (Section 132.122,PSM...
...This statement is typically liberal in its idealistic belief that "confrontation" based on objective fact can be dissolved by wishes and good intentions...
...Trade unions that have operated within the parameters of the capitalist order still demand higher wages, of course, since that is the job they have learned to do...
...1. Title of Publication: DISSENT...
...Praised by progressive liberals, at least outside Sweden itself, its gradually achieved social reforms have been discussed contemptuously by dogmatic revolutionaries who profess to be true Marxists...
...copies each issue during preceding 12 months-3,750...
...Distrust in the system infects not only employees but also investors—see, for instance, an illuminating article by former President Ford's advisor Allan Greenspan in the Economist of August 6, 1977...
...This is part of the internal inconsistency of bourgeois socialliberalism...
...Some Marxist commentators have voiced apprehensions that the Swedish capitalist class may turn fascist...
...This may sound forbiddingly abstract or theoretical, but there is no way around it if we wish to escape what seem to be intractable difficulties and social boredom...
...This has been suggested, for instance, by a leading management expert, Ulf of Trolle, who recently said: "We have created problems that cannot be solved in an atmosphere of confrontation...
...119 Yet it manages its own internal decisions in a manner primarily conditioned by the narrow and often short-term needs of single-firm profitability...
...4. Location of Known Office of Publication: 505 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...It was the Social Democratic party that was responsible for these early attempts to improve the functioning of the capitalist order, and it did so with the support of such liberal politicians as the leader of the Folkpartiet, Bertil Ohlin...
...7. Owner (If owned by a corporation, its name and address must be stated and also immediately thereunder the names and addresses of stockholders owning or holding I percent or more of total amount of stock...
...Our assessment of the political forces that push toward more socialist solutions will therefore be concluded with a few observations about the Social Democratic party...
...8. Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders Owning or Holding I percent or more of total amount of Bonds, Mortgages, or other Securities: None...
...The market is "self-contradictory" over time...
...an improved but still quite inadequate work environment...
...What is the likelihood of structural transformations in the relationships between capital and labor in the near future...
...According to a voluntaristic interpretation of power, which assigns power to the majority will of decision-makers, the legislation already in force, if pursued further, could lead to a more complete economic democracy even if it did not change the basic features of the capitalist system...
...3. Frequency of Issue: Quarterly...
...Extent and Nature of Circulation: A. Total No...
...This same issue may appear again in the 1979 elections, though it is not likely to attain the same importance, for there is widespread disillusionment with the Center party as the largest party in the 1976 government coalition...
...has left them in a predicament where they have access only to one actor to tackle all the problems gnawing at capitalism, namely the interventionist state...
...This predicament is all the sharper because these Swedish socialliberals, during the long era of Social Democratic government, relentlessly at121 tacked the role of the state and the actions of the central, governmental bureaucracies...
...Until it lost power in the 1976 elections, that government was the driving force behind our ambitious but largely piecemeal socialwelfare and monetary policies, while the basic problem-generating structures were left very much intact...
...Liberalism under Socialism IF THE BOURGEOIS PARTIES stay in government long enough, contrary to my predictions, we can expect more consistency in private interests and the economic policy pursued by the government...
...Though the policies of the Social Democrats in their 44 years of governmental power also were essentially social-liberali...
...Yet, these new policies have done little to improve the business climate...
...Wildcat strikes, as well as regular union activities, have now brought about a shift from piecerates to monthly salaries for large groups of Swedish workers...
...But by definition, private enterprise cannot be socially responsible...
...Such lists of problems could be established for any advanced capitalist country...
...Actual no...
...Copies Printed (Net Press Run): Average no...
...The purpose, function and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes have not changed during preceding 12 months...
...In addition to the impact of the abnormally prolonged international recession, the domestic situation has deteriorated a great deal, particularly in respect to relations between labor and capital...
...In place of understanding, we have stale "profundities" about Sweden being a country that is stagnating morally and culturally affluence corroded by boredom and drift, and by a loss of incentive for work and innovation—so "profound" that once again President Eisenhower's statistical nonsense about suicide is becoming fashionable...
...One of the bourgeois parties, the Center party, promised to abolish nuclear power, and its leader even went as far as to promise that he would rather give up a ministerial post than compromise with his stand on this issue...
...Consequently, the extended working class might be able to find a significant number of middle-class allies in support of structural reforms to reduce the flaws inherent in the capitalist order...
...Where normally the parties that gained the most in an election for a while keep on gaining public support, this time the Social Democratic party has been growing remarkably after its defeat to a point where, since March 1977, public-opinion polls give it an absolute majority...
...B. Paid Circulation...
...STANLEY PLASTRIK, Business Manager q 128...
...If respondents combine a perception of these threats with a perception of threats considered as systemic aspects of society—the influence of capitalism, the increasing mechanization of work, the growth of big business, etc.—we classify such respondents as exhibiting an awareness of the structural problems that go beyond piecemeal issues...
...From the point of view of professional academic historians, as well as that of Communist writers to the left of Social Democracy, this sequence of periods may seem a bit too neat to be historically true...
...ON THE STAGE of social change, there are several other actors besides the political parties formulating state policy: the business community and the trade unions among them...
...10017...
...Admittedly, this "dialectical" interpretation is rather unusual among Marxists commenting on contemporary Sweden...
...But recently, the process of defining such problem solutions, and making them acceptable, has picked up speed in Sweden...
...I keep my fingers crossed...
...Irving Howe, 505 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...Inflation 1977 was twice as high as before, taxes have not decreased except for certain higher income groups, private enterprise has not shown itself more capable of improving its performance, and the nuclear power program, which the Center party promised to abolish, is still being pursued, even if at a somewhat slower rate...
...However "pure" this Marxist criticism may be, armed as it is with the powerful if not flawless analytic tools of historical materialism, the "purer" fact remains that these critics simply bungle the whole story...
...The definition of a problem may be generally accepted long before adequate solutions come to be accepted by an electoral majority...
...Structural Contradictions LET US PAUSE here to restate some of the aspects of Marxist thought in terms that can readily be understood by nonbelievers...
...C. Total Paid Circulation (Sum of 10B 1 and 10B2): Average no...
...The greatest obstacle to taking these steps 126 toward socialism will not be domestic...
...The success that bred further success in what was originally a strictly competitive market succumbs, in time, to oligopolisitc or monopolistic structures...
...D. Free Distribution by Mail, Carrier, or Other Means...
...1. Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors and Counter Sales: Average no...
...This would not only give trade unions a decisive proportion of the shares in these companies over a period of time but would imply a corresponding transfer of decisionmaking power from the traditional holders of capital to labor...
...The Liberal party-the Folkpartiet-has been allowed to form a minority government that probably will rule the country until the next regular election in September 1979, by attracting whatever parliamentary votes can be obtained from the other two bourgeois parties-and occasionally from the Social Democrats...
...The conservative opposition, in the nature of things, always leveled these accusations...
...The building of a full-fledged democratic socialist society is certainly not something to be accomplished within ten years...
...In Marxist terms, the structural contradiction of capitalism is not only a theoretical construct guiding the best informed decisionmakers in government and private enterprise but also a reality that expresses itself in the exploitaion of those who have nothing to sell but their labor...
...It is also interesting to note that this ideological awareness extends beyond the working class far into the upper middle strata, although it is not as frequently found there as in the working class itself...
...The party leadership, as it enters its "third phase" of development, seems convinced that raising the issue of economic democracy, the real problem of Swedish society, corresponds with the mood of the electorate...
...Burnham-type managers, separated from the ownership of capital and primarily concerned with doing a good job, will become increasingly common in the business community and, to their surprise, will find it as stimulating to work for labor as for capital...
...10017...
...What matters is that social-liberals cannot relate effectively to this "social fact," evidenced by the deteriorating relationship between labor and government in our present bourgeois regime...
...The three bourgeois parties in government then found it impossible to go on ruling together-mainly but not exclusively November 1, 1978 due to the nuclear-power issue...
...The resource-accumulating, decisionmaking, and resource-allocating processes within capitalism—that is, the social relations of capitalist production—cannot match this increasingly societal and international character of the productive forces...
...Michael Walzer, 505 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...In the one area where the present government admittedly is following the policies of the previous Social Democratic government—in fighting unemployment they have been somewhat more successful...
...copies of single issue published nearest to filing date-7,000...
...2. Mail Subscriptions: Average no...
...It was not, of course, a "free" ride for wealth...
...They would increase incentives for private capital accumulation and investment, allowing the market to operate with more complete freedom...
...Actual no...
...and they are unwilling to offer the incentives of codetermination and power over capital now in demand...
...Socialism is supposed to spring from the internal contradictions, problems, and crises generated within the capitalist order precisely where it is most highly developed...
...We asked a series of questions regarding unemployment, inflation, nuclear power, and the like...
...The Swedish working class displays a higher level of such social consciousness than the population as a whole...
...Who will win that election, and those that follow, and on what platform...
...It is indeed a country at a crossroad, with an enormous potential for qualitative and structural change, beyond the slowly incremental, and moving in the direction of socialist innovation within the framework of democracy...
...One such factor is the degree of unionization...
...Space limitation precludes here a thorough discussion of why the party lost in 1976 beyond a few observations buttressed by recent publicopinion polls...
...Most important, they lack a comprehensive and consistent diagnosis of the obvious weaknesses of the present system...
...This social consciousness, however, merely sets the stage for the future...
...The failure of Swedish social-liberal politicians to relate at all to organized labor (in contrast to the experience of the U.S...
...Once economic democracy based on workers' control and self-management has been made constitutional, these controversial issues, which now divide and confuse the socialliberals, will be removed from day-to-day political preoccupations, just as political democracy stopped being controversial in Sweden long ago...
...It is the gap between aspiration and performance that generates a disappointment perhaps more intense in Sweden than in other societies even though the latter exhibit the same problems of late capitalism to an even greater extent...
...6. Names and Complete Addresses of Publisher, Editor, and Managing Editor: Publisher: None...
...Finally, it is pertinent to emphasize that the emergence of this new type of structural social consciousness is not correlated with leisuretime consumption of mass-media and consumer commodities...
...it could still turn out to be at least partially true...
...It is, in a general way, trying to improve the market situation for free enterprise and shows little taste for applying selective regulations on business...
...Social-liberals can then concentrate on a creative concern for individual rights and related issues...
...it rests purely on deductions from a highly simplified theory of class struggle, and on analogies of countries very different from Sweden, such as Allende's Chile...
...Now that they are themselves in government, they cannot avoid using far-reaching state intervention, just as in other European states run by bourgeois governments...
...This trend is as discernible in Sweden as elsewhere...
...The speed of this process depends not only on the objective conditions of work and unionization mentioned above, but also on the responsiveness of political leadership and the tempo of political decision-making...
...Unable today to place itself unambiguously on either the side of capital or labor, it might demonstrate a less ambiguous role under socialism, because it can then concentrate on its classical function as critic and as defender of individual human rights...
...Or as seen in the perspective of the man in the street: the acceleration of the work tempo...
...Liberal vs...
...2. Date of Filing: September 1, 1978...
...But these contradictions of capitalism could be examined, not only with respect to the incompatibility of two overarching structures—the forces and social relations of production—but also in some other respects...
...They are generated by the structural contradictions of capitalism...
...All in all, it is not surprising that public-opinion polls show a decline in support for the bourgeois parties...
...their increasing degree of unionization would seem to promise a continued expansion of this ideological perception, since the awareness of structural defects is correlated with unionization...
...Should such a situation arise, part of the solution may rest with progressive liberalism...
...But would not a political incorporation of the new issues of working-class power recently introduced by trade unions lead to more serious class confrontations, and thus threaten the creative national effort needed to get Sweden out of its present impasse...
...But Swedish labor is not only very highly organized and unified...
...These, in turn, reduce or eliminate the very competition that is supposed to be the unique vehicle of optimal resource allocation in a freeenterprise economy...
...But is the Social Democratic party likely to become strong enough in electoral support and parliamentary votes to implement a program of structural reforms...
...As seen from the "commanding heights" of a capitalist economic policy, several problems are obvious: the loss of incentive, if you wish, since the whole capitalist cum welfare system is approaching its limit of growth in consumer demand as well as in fiscal measures...
...A. Publication No.: 158080...
...Another inconsistency may be found in its refusal to make use of specific government interventions proposed by the Social Democratic opposition, limiting themselves, instead, to generalized measures supplemented by appeals to the "social responsibility" of private enterprise...
...This does not mean that victorious return of a Social Democratic government would not have its problems...
...The trend however, is clear: whereas only about 50 percent of white-collar employees were unionized in 1950, about 70 percent were unionized by 1975...
...When a crisis situation has deteriorated to a point where problems no longer are seen as exciting challenges but as a depressing tedium—as an occasion to find irrelevant scapegoats—then it is time to reconsider the very terms in which our problems have been perceived and defined...
...Important and urgent decisions in this and other areas where the three parties in government could not agree have been postponed, and thus have given the Social Democratic opposition an 122 opportunity to argue that our present government is incapable of ruling...
...If Marx's prediction about the "bursting asunder" of capitalist social relations of production should be borne out in any highly industrialized nation, Sweden is a natural candidate...
...Whether or not predictions of a big Social Democratic victory in the 1979 elections prove to come true, it is clear that the Social Democratic party has not moved closer to the Center...
...Even when critics have got the facts straight about this land of the Middle Way, their image of Sweden has been incomplete and superficial...
...The Marxist perspective recognizes a basic contradiction in that the industrial forces of production become increasingly societal, while the decision-making machinery implied in capitalist relations of production virtually exclude consistent and effective considerations of the wide-ranging societal responsibilities of production...
...Swedish exports, which constitute nearly a third of GNP and hence are a crucial factor in the welfare of the country, derive almost completely from private enterprise...
...poor job satisfaction with spillovers into impoverished and depersonalized use of leisure time...
...today the proportion is only about a third of all those gainfully employed...
...Nor do they seem particularly interested in theoretically considering the possibility of mobilizing this class under a liberal banner, since class action cannot be accommodated within the individualist framework of liberal theory...
...Viewed in a long-term perspective, it could be argued that a Social Democratic party deriving most of its support from the working class will inevitably lose ground, since the working class is diminishing in size...
...Not all members of the working class, as I have here defined it, vote labor...
...The formation of social classes, which act out societal contradictions through measures of strike activity, political action, and so forth, is an element missing in the liberal understanding of the divergences between private and social economies...
...We have to recognize here that problems of bureaucratic ossification and neglect for individual rights will exist in a democratic socialist society— just as they exist in our present type of capitalism...
...Under present conditions, where the interests of labor and capital stand in clear opposition, the direction of trade-union policy is plainly on the side of labor...
...This social policy imposed certain costs on private enterprise, but also earned it substantial benefits...
...Samples, Complimentary, and Other Free Copies: Average no...
...But that is the Swedish way, low-keyed and reformist rather than expressive and rhetorical...
...Private gross investment (housing excluded) is 57 percent, and private investment in machinery 78 percent...
...A. No...
...These liberal economists are quite aware that there is no longer an "invisible hand" that will bring about an automatic harmony between private and social economic considerations...
...However, under conditions of workercontrolled "capital-fund socialism," the unions would have to operate on both levels—on the side of management and on the side of the workers...
...The forces moving in a socialist direction are certainly more articulate and well organized than ever before, though perhaps more visible through the prism of sociological analysis than in explicit political pronouncements...
...If not owned by a corporation, names and addresses of the individual owners must be given...
...Actual no...
...it also has tended to become bureaucratized and centralized...
...Furthermore, the position of white-collar employees is more vulnerable than it used to be...
...In a future democratic socialist system adjusted to the specific historical requirements of Swedish society, with new and better relations of production having been legislated, opposing interests would still have to be represented by different political parties in parliament...
...copies of single issue published nearest to filing date-4,900...
...I referred earlier to sociological studies by Allardt and Scase, which show that Swedes generally exhibit a stronger sense of conflict, inequity, and injustice than people in comparable countries—and this despite Sweden's superior welfare programs...
...The fact that quite a number of wildcat strikes have been fairly effective in attaining their ends plus the emergence of demands for a more responsive trade-union leadership has, in my judgment, and however paradoxically, increased the strength of organized labor...
...According to these studies there is no evidence for an ideological "embourgeoisement" of the Swedish working class...
...Actual no...
...In a society that has arrived at a socialist order through democratic means and parliamentary legislation, the liberal posture could be maintained with more consistency and less ideological confusion...
...3626 provides in pertinent part: "No person who would have been entitled to mail matter under former section 4359 of this title shall mail such matter at the rates provided under this subsection unless he files annually with the Postal Service a written request for permission to mail matter at such rates...
...It implies no more than a certain definition of the problems of capitalism...
...We are now in the midst of such a debate in preparation for the next general elections in September 1979...
...There were, to be sure, other issues—a negative attitude to state bureaucracy and "socialism," for example— but these had arisen in earlier elections that were nevertheless won by the Social Democrats...
...The solutions proposed by increasingly hawkish business leaders would ultimately dismantle some still significant welfare institutions...
...In the third phase, which has just barely begun, the main issue is economic democracy, which implies a step-by-step but still complete overhaul of power relationships between capital and labor...
...Marxists, whe ther supporters, critics, or merely observers, have been less concerned with moral and cultural decay and the loss of incentives than with the amazing stability of capitalism in a country that for more than 40 years was ruled by a mass labor party...
...One particularly interesting problem concerns the future role of trade unions in a system of production dominated by worker-controlled capital funds and company decision-making dominated by trade unions...
...However, my own analysis—tentative as it is and relying on "finger-tip" evidence—leads me to believe that Sweden, within a period of a decade beginning in 1979, will become the first country in the world to have taken decisive and virtually irreversible steps toward socialist relations of production in a democratic and reformist manner...
...copies of single issue published nearest to filing date-7,000...
...Space prevents a full discussion of this point, but I would say it is very much a matter of timing and sequence...
...Industry depends more and more on society and state for infrastructural, productive, regulative, and planning inputs...
...copies each issue during preceding 12 months--5,000...
...If the numerical strength of this working class were sufficient for constituting an electoral majority in behalf of a party prepared to initiate structural reforms leading to the abolition of the capitalist system, then Sweden would already have taken giant strides toward socialism, which it has not...
...10017...
...copies of single issue published nearest to filing date3,700...
...In Sweden, to this day, 94 percent of the means of production in manufacturing are privately owned...
...Seasoned political commentators are already predicting a Social Democratic victory in our next elections, with another relatively long period of Social Democratic government...
...But, after many years of research and political experience, I do believe that Sweden is far from being a stagnant society...
...This new attitude found an expression in demands for monthly salaries instead of backbreaking piece rates, despite the fact that monthly salaries frequently meant less money in the pocket by the end of the month...
...copies of single issue published nearest to filing date-330...
...Problems of Late Capitalism PROBLEMS ABOUND in Sweden today, but they are the problems of late capitalism, not of democratic socialism...
...A competitive market, in practice if not in the idealized models of neoclassical economic theory, operates in a self-destructive manner...
...Slightly more than half of the voters who shifted their allegiance from the Social Democratic party to the Center party seem to have based their switch on the nuclear-power issue...
...The spread of wildcat strikes in the late 1960s and early '70s can be interpreted as directed against this "centralistic" trend in trade unions, and not only against management...
...Sociologically speaking, the most important aspect of many of these new legal acts is that they were intended to counteract the centralism that has been so pervasive in Swedish society, without destroying the power of the national federation of trade unions, LO...
...1. Office Use, Left Over, Unaccounted, Spoiled after Printing: Average no...
...In its net effect, this strategy exposes the basically antisocial nature of capitalist relations of production, particularly at a time of prolonged recession when the most attractive asset of capitalism its capacity for economic growth—is left in doubt...
...The growth of affluence hurts the very mainspring of the capitalist system: its reliance on monetary incentives and rewards...
...For Completion by Publishers Mailing at the Regular Rates (Section 132.121, Postal Service Manual): 39 U.S.C...
...copies of single issue published nearest to filing date-5,230...
...Such a policy may indeed strengthen the position of capital...
...These funds will thus supplement the decision-making reforms provided in other laws at the point where these laws have shown their greatest weakness, and will make it possible to address more effectively the basic problems of capitalism...
...This contradiction, coupled with recessions and crises, and the inability of capitalism to resolve them quickly, has promoted the demand for state interventions in all the advanced capitalist countries...
...With the defeat of the Social Democratic Labor party in the Swedish general elections of 1976, they could not be so easily dismissed...
...But the increasing strength that Swedish business may be gaining through further capital concentration, through the growing influence of investment companies and through investment abroad rather than in Sweden, may prove to be hollow...
...The conflict between labor and capital, on the other hand, could become more intense...
...Problems of family life and childrearing, alienation of working-class youth in school, work, and leisure are all manifestations of exploitation in the contemporary capitalist order...
...the absence of innovative impulse and far-sighted investments, which lead to dwindling competitiveness and diminish the profitability of industrial production...
...3626...
...It would therefore seem that the stage is now set for political action to solve these problems and so change society...
...Nevertheless, it deserves closer scrutiny...
...10017...
...Actual no...
...Though TCO is careful to indicate that it is unattached to any political party, its stand on several crucial issues with regard to workers' codetermination, labor-controlled capital funds, etc., places it very close ideologically to the LO...
...Though this perception may resemble Marxian theory, it differs significantly from a socialist conception based on a Marxist diagnosis of capitalism...
...The new government is not taxing the business community as severely as the Social Democratic government did...
...Actual no copies of single issue published nearest to filing date-770...
...Factors beyond class position obviously affect the electoral vote...
...The outcome of a struggle between these opposing forces within the framework of a democratic policy is by no means certain...
...I will limit myself here to the relative strength of the political parties and the prospects of a Social Democratic comeback...
...air, water, and traffic pollution...
...I do not for a minute accept ideological propositions about the inevitability of socialism as a result of the mobilization of the working class in response to the decay of capitalism...
...Three Stages LOOKING BACK at the performance of the Social Democratic government during the 1972-76 electoral period, when its position in parliament was rather weak, we find a quite remarkable list of legislative accomplishments on relations between labor and capital...
...unemployment is as much a threat to them as to blue-collar workers...
...The Social Democratic party (which has continued to increase its electoral support according to the public-opinion polls) then suggested reelections but could not rally sufficient parliamentary support for this proposal...
...Genuine, not fake, local controls are being placed in the hands of workers in local unions...
...From what I hold to be a more genuine Marxist standpoint, it would seem possible, however, to argue that Swedish social democracy, by helping capitalism to develop and mature, in fact (if not in a conscious and deliberate manner) has brought Swedish society closer to a socialist transformation...
...One possible effect of these laws, apart from somewhat changing the power relationships between labor and capital, is to create a new social climate that will encourage new ways of thinking and acting about the relations of production...
...Since Sweden is probably one of the most politicized countries in the world, these problems are the object of intense political debate...
...G. Total (Sum of E, Fl, and 2-should equal net press run shown in A): Average no...
...In bargaining negotiations with the trade-union movement in the spring of 1977, the Swedish employers confederation (SAF) took a harsh and rigid stand, unprecedented since the late 1920s, not only with regard to wage demands but also on issues that had been legislated rather recently in parliament...
...threats of unemployment and the terror inspired in whole communities dominated by single, crisis-struck, dying industries...
...The economic picture has not changed dramatically since then, even though the economy has improved somewhat according to conventional economic aggregate indicators...
...The Swedish Social Democratic party in recent years has been receiving only between 43 and 52 percent of the electoral vote, and the small Communist party has obtained no more than about 4 to 5 percent...
...The Social Democratic party was not prepared to make this an issue in the 1976 election campaign but is presently on the campaign trail to promote such a reform in the near future...
...These we called "piecemeal" threats...
...The pervasive chain of gloom and stagnation cannot be broken unless we discover that our problems no longer can be dealt with efficiently one by one, but only by tackling the social structures that have generated these problems in the first place, and that must be transformed in order to release new forces of social development...
...In effect, it points to a third actor on the stage beside the interventionist state and private enterprise namely the working class as organized in trade unions and not only in political parties...
...The three bourgeois parties now represented in the government have been unable to deliver on most of their campaign promises...
...If owned by a partnership or other unincorporated firm, its name and address, as well as that of each individual must be given): Dissent Publishing Corporation, 505 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...Operating machinery as "unskilled" labor, and performing routine tasks without access to the privileged knowledge embodied in this technical machinery, has become increasingly common among so-called nonmanual whitecollar workers...
...The first period was the struggle for universal suffrage and democracy undertaken together with liberal politicians some 70 years ago...
...No wonder that capitalist spokesmen complain 120 about the loss of incentive to work...
...it is an exploitation that defines the quality of working life and also the quality of leisure since both have been shown to be closely correlated...
...q STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, and CIRCULATION (Required by 39 U.S.C...
...copies of single issue published nearest to filing date-I,000...
...copies each issue during preceding 12 months-455...
...During the long postwar period of economic growth, private enterprise could depend on a predictable labor market, favorable credit conditions, and on an expanding domestic market...
...3685...
...Socialist Perceptions LEADING LIBERAL ECONOMISTS in Sweden have arrived at ideas that roughly, but far from completely, correspond to Marx's concept of the contradiction between the forces and the relations of production under capitalism Progressive liberals are not unaware of what Marxists call the increasingly societal character of the productive forces, as contrasted with the narrow focus of business decisions...
...This seems far-fetched to me...
...Whereas more than 90 percent of all blue-collar workers in Sweden are organized in LO, the central federation of blue-collar unions, unionization, until recently, has been much lower among white-collar employees...
...Pursuing this theme Goran Ahrne and myself have carried out surveys probing the people's images of society, its threats and contradictions...
...Gloom and disenchantment were obvious at mid-term of the new government...
...The voice of organized labor was clearly heard in Social Democratic headquarters, and unions were usually willing to collaborate with the Social Democratic government...
...To understand why the size of the working class and the strength of its organizations so far has not assured greater electoral support for a labor party committed to structural changes, we must take a closer look at the ideological components of class relations, and 123 the subjective consciousness displayed by different strata within the working class...
...It seems necessary then to redefine the working class, as many have proposed in Europe and the U.S.A., to include clerical or service operations, which require no intellectual labor in the true sense...
...I am thinking here of the proposal for worker-controlled capital funds, originally initiated by the Federation of Metal Worker Unions...
...Other, more far-reaching, socialist changes are virtually impossible without at least the initiation of change in this international economic order...
...Paradoxical as it may sound, progressive liberalism would be more relevant in a system of democratic socialism than it seems to be in what we now call a liberal democracy...
...What is implied by an expression such as "the increasingly societal character of productive forces...
...2. Returns from News Agents: Average no...
...Policy formations based on mere good will are likelN to intensify the contradictions they are meant to soften...
...The original proposal is now being revised to take into account the results of further studies and debates within the party and the trade-union movement...
...But it is not that simple...
...10017...
...127 Postscript This article was written in the spring of 1978...
...Our Social Democratic leadership has repeatedly proclaimed that the Swedish style of socialism would not impose a one-party political system...
...However, all this could be a passing phenomenon...
...Managing Editor: Edith Tarcov, 505 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...Liberals may even find a role to play in trade-union elections where today they are seen as completely irrelevant...
...of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date1,200...
...The most dramatic change took place in October 1978...
...Furthermore, the Social Democrats, because of their close collaboration with the trade unions, could involve more than the state in coming to grips with the problems of capitalism...
...The limited laws now in effect already reduce the decision-making power of capital within the existing order of private or company property...
...Since the movement of capital in the present economic crisis is often geared more to profitable speculation than to production and labor, the dynamic of the capital market leads to a worsening of the predicament of labor...
Vol. 26 • January 1979 • No. 1
