The welfare state

It was only in two zones in the world that the labor movement was strengthened after the debacle of 1917-19. It was the Nordic countries and the United States. This was largely due to the fact that the industry was modernized the fastest there and the workers were able to benefit most from the sensitivity of the conveyor belt technology to disturbances.

While the workers in the United States used their power to drive up their wages, the Nordic labor movement succeeded in using the government power strategy most creatively of all labor movements. This was where the most ambitious attempt ever to integrate workers into society began in the 1930s. During the period 1945-1975, the model of the Nordic labor movement would be the model for the whole world labor movements with their social insurance, their workers’ protection and their comparatively democratic governance.

In Europe, the government-power strategy tended to be a combination of, on the one hand, hope that good politicians would provide the people with reforms, and, on the other hand, the distancing of workers’ local communities from the whole political game. There was also this tendency in the Nordic countries, but here there was also a greater popular self-confidence that was not intimidated by ”building the country” on its own and interfering with the government.

The reason can perhaps be sought in greater traditional peasant independence than in the rest of Europe, which from the middle of the 19th century resulted in more confident popular movements for both workers and other direct producers. In all the Nordic countries, the construction of the welfare state was a broad project in which the labor movement (which took the initiative) collaborated with farmers’ organizations and broader cross-class popular movement organizations.

In the Nordic model, there was both a strength and a weakness.

The strength was that the welfare state could become more encompassing than anywhere else. Popular movement organizations participated directly in the administration and were able to prevent the systems from being bureaucratized to the detriment of users. The state bureaucracies were forced to take an unusual measure of consideration.

The weakness was that the direct producers lost their ability to mobilize. A dense web of institutionalized compromises paralyzed the identity of the popular movements and all ”we” were thinned out. When the growing global upper middle class of symbol managers of the late 20th century attacked the security and participation of direct producers, these had no ability to resist. The demolition of the security systems and increase of inequality went faster in the Nordic countries than in any other country.

Reading
Lena Hellbom: Från primitiv till organiserad demokrati, Salamander 1985
Sten O Karlsson: Det intelligenta samhället, Carlssons Bokförlag 2001