Norway's Election
DORFMAN, HERBERT
NORWAY'S ELECTION By Herbert Dorfman Socialists seek sixth term Norway's Labor party, which hasn't been out of power since 1935 and has held Parliamentary majorities since 1945, hopes to increase...
...Such welfare measures as national health insurance are no longer political issues...
...In return, trade-unionists got stable living costs, extended welfare benefits, annual three-week paid vacations and a tax policy aimed at leveling of incomes...
...In the present Storting, Labor holds 76 of the 150 seats, but the rest are fragmented: The Conservative party has 26, the Agrarian and Liberal parties 15 each, and the Christian People's party 14...
...Between 1945 and 1949...
...Industrial production, real wages and gross national product are at record highs, and the Norwegian standard of living is among the best in Europe...
...But workingmen, whose real wages have thus risen steadily, and the farmers themselves are hardly unhappy with the system...
...limit on extending welfare programs...
...Including schools and hospitals...
...Norwegian aluminum, paper and pulp, and fishery products now command high prices on the world market...
...Other parties did criticize, however, the financing and building of the State Steel Works...
...Government authorities control only about a fifth of all property in Norway...
...it usually can achieve its aims more peacefully...
...For several postwar years, planning meant a certain amount of austerity, as the Government sought to expand export industries...
...Norway, an active NATO member, recently announced it would accept rocket weapons from the United States, despite threats of atomic destruction from Soviet Premier Bul-ganin...
...NORWAY'S ELECTION By Herbert Dorfman Socialists seek sixth term Norway's Labor party, which hasn't been out of power since 1935 and has held Parliamentary majorities since 1945, hopes to increase its two-seat margin in national elections on October 7. Despite Social Democratic losses in Denmark and Sweden in the past year, public-opinion polls show a steady gain in Norwegian Labor strength since the beginning of 1957...
...When labor has political power, says Federation President Konrad Nordahl...
...To an American observer, the campaign rarely sounds more bitter than an argument between a liberal Republican and a New Deal Democrat...
...Almost all industry and shipping are in private hands...
...2 man on the Labor party's Oslo election list this year, while the party program advocates a shorter work week...
...This is the first time such a gain has been noted in four postwar elections...
...Should the Labor party fail to gain a clear majority, it would still be hard to form a government without it...
...Social Democracy appears headed for its sixth consecutive mandate from the Norwegian people...
...Nor is there any controversy over public ownership of railways, telegraph and telephone, radio stations, public utilities, liquor sales and grain trade facilities...
...The minor parties' programs differ widely...
...Labor's answer was in the tradition of Scandinavian Social Democracy: We need a steel mill, and there isn't enough private capital in the country to build one...
...The merchant marine, third largest in the world, has risen from 2.7 million to 8.5 million tons since the end of the war...
...Prime Minister Gerhardsen told Bulganin that Norway reserved the right to arm itself as it saw fit...
...Nordahl is No...
...Perhaps the strongest opposition attacks have been against farm subsidies, by which Labor has held down consumer prices...
...Norway's Socialists have placed the emphasis on welfare and planning...
...the Federation of Labor renounced the right to strike and agreed to submit all wage disputes to arbitration—enabling the Labor Government to reconstruct the war-torn economy without fear of crippling stoppages...
...The lack of ideological controversy is a tribute to the postwar Labor governments led by Premier Einar Gerhardsen...
...The maximum Conservative program amounts to tax cuts for higher-income individuals and certain industries like shipping, a reduction in farm subsidies, fewer price and material controls, and a Herbert Dorfman, who spent a year in Oslo as a Fulbright scholar, is author of Labor Relations in Norway...
...Other opposition criticisms center upon the charge of bureaucracy...
...None of the other parties has objected...
...No corruption or inefficiency is charged, but the bureaucratic supervision of the planned economy has caused irritation at various times among individuals and firms wishing to build houses, buy automobiles, set prices and so forth...
...Even since 1949, there have been few strikes...
...The death of King Haakon VII, after a reign of 52 years, has deeply affected the nation, but it will have little effect on the election...
...Since Norway's employers are almost as well organized as the workers, bargaining in a few key industries sets the tone for the whole economy...
...Underlying the Labor party's success has been its close relations with the trade unions...
...Though orators speak of "planned economy" versus "free economy," even the Conservatives are pledged to most of the welfare gains made under Labor...
...The Conservatives are Labor's most persistent critics, while the Agrarians and Liberals are putative Labor coalition partners...
Vol. 40 • October 1957 • No. 40
