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Working-Class Power and the 1946 Pension Reform in Sweden. A Modest Festschrift Contribution*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

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Abstract

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Type
Suggestions and Debates
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1989

References

1 Therborn, G. (1983): “The Working Class, the Welfare State and Sweden”, paper presented at the Social Policy seminar of the Swedish Sociological Association (Ladvik, 1985), p. 37Google Scholar, reprinted in Kettunen, P. (ed.), Det nordiska i den nordiska arbetarrörelsen (Helsinki, 1986), pp. 175Google Scholar. Baldwin follows in the footsteps of Therborn and indeed singles out major contributors to the development of the Swedish welfare state in addition to those who are usually honoured. Although an appropriate foundation, considering we are living in 1989 – the centenary of the foundation of the Social Democratic Labour Party in Sweden – I think it is important to see the true proportions of this narrative. Thus, these pages may be labelled, to paraphrase Therborn, “a modest Festschrift contribution” (p. 28).

2 Elmér, Å., Folkpensioneringen i Sverige (Malmö, 1960).Google Scholar

3 International Review of Social History, XXXIII (1988), pp. 121147Google Scholar [hereafter Baldwin, , IRSHGoogle Scholar]. Cf. Baldwin, P., “The Scandinavian Origins of the Social Interpretation of the Welfare State”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 31 (1989), no. 1, pp. 324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Baldwin, P., “The Politics of Social Solidarity and the Class Origins of the European Welfare State 1875–1975” (Harvard University, Department of History, 1987)Google Scholar, mimeo [hereafter Baldwin, , PSSCOEWS].Google Scholar

5 Productivity at American universities, in particular the production of dissertations from the elite schools, has created a fundamental problem in the scientific community at large. The need to make a career in an extremely competitive academic market place, where success is founded on making a ‘break through’ in an overwhelming publishing milieu, forces the dissertation authors to press their points to the extreme as well as to adapt them to the theoretical conjuncture of the day. Invisible academic proof-work is superficially transformed into visible articles in scientific journals, the most prestigious form of publishing and the best means for providing advertisement for forthcoming books. Thus, while simplistic viewpoints are spread all over the field, the indispensable ‘Socratic’ dialogue between scholarly minds is put aside. Too much competition can be turned into a disadvantage. The threat of anti-intellectualism based on this orientation cannot be overlooked, sacrificing the generally high quality of American research, in particular historical research. I would like to add, that these remarks reflect my own ambiguity towards a system I had an extremely rewarding firsthand experience of as a Fulbright visiting scholar during academic year 1987/1988 at Mount Vernon College and the Brookings Institution, Washington D.C. Commenting upon these remarks, Per Nyström reminded me that Gunnar Myrdal early on had noticed another bad habit in the US academic community: the abuse of citations from best friends and close colleagues (letter to the author 1989–01–26).

6 Concerning the astonishment among social policy experts at the apparent progressiveness of the bourgeois parties, it is important to note that Baldwin misreads Elmér, ibid., IRSH, p. 137, n. 45. Elmér does not say that the Right's attitude “is the most difficult to explain”, only that it is not possible for him to conclude whether it was purely tactical or a matter of principle (pp. 118–127). Elmér also stresses that he is speculating on this issue, but pays considerable attention to the principal arguments. However, he does not analyze in terms of rationality (a great merit in Baldwin's article), makes no reference to the Right's advocacy of white-collar pension interests, and does not investigate the sources to which Baldwin has had access (especially the archive of the Right party).

7 Baldwin, , IRSH, p. 128Google Scholar: “The universality and apparent solidarity of some of the most conspicuous and celebrated postwar reforms were not the result of the Left's strength, but were due to the immediate and direct interests the bourgeois classes and their parties developed in such social policy.” Indeed, these “interests” are of course part of the policy process that made possible the unanimity in Parliament when welfare reforms were enacted in Sweden in the mid-1940s. Cf. Hatje, A.-K., Befolkningsfrågan och välfärden (Stockholm, 1974), esp. pp. 222224.Google Scholar

8 Baldwin, , PSSCOEWS, pp. 2728Google Scholar. For references to proponents of the ‘Social’ interpretation, see Baldwin, , IRSH, p. 127Google Scholar, nn. 18 and 20. For a recent overview of alternative schools of thought, see Skocpol, T. and Amenta, E.States and Social Policies” in Annual Review of Sociology, 12 (1986), pp. 131157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Baldwin, , PSSCOEWS, pp. 7779Google Scholar. This “counter-criticism” is not made in order to apologize for the frequent use and abuse of Sweden as an implicit yardstick in recent welfare state research, just to bring out the underlying methodological problem in Baldwin's article.

10 It would have been interesting to know whether the Right Party's pretention that its new social policy stance was the equivalent of the Beveridge Plan, had any repercussions outside the party. However, it seems that this was mainly an “internal argument”. Cf. Baldwin, , IRSH, p. 134Google Scholar. Already in 1943 a presentation of the Beveridge Plan had been written by Sven Larsson - a social policy expert on the secretariat of the Population Commission – as a result of active intervention by Gustav Möller. This booklet was published by the Social Democratic publishing house Tiden.

11 Of course, both the British Labour Party and the Swedish Social Democrats belong to the European Labour Movement and definitely share certain general values. Nevertheless, despite their internationalistic rhetoric, each labour party has first of all to be seen in its national context, in particular when it is in a position to influence the broader political spectrum. To see Alarik Hagård and Martin Skoglund, the junior and senior Conservatives on the Social Welfare Committee, as two Swedish “Beveridges” – which in effect is what Baldwin does – would be a tremendous exaggeration. Hagård was the son of a farmer, worked as a teacher but ended up as General Manager of the Borås Public Hospital. He entered Parliament in 1941 and was an MP until his untimely death in 1956. Throughout his Parliamentary career, his main interest was social policy. (Information provided by Åke Elmér in a letter to the author 1988–08–11.) Skoglund was a wealthy farmer and later Speaker of the Upper House (see also note 39). Actually, Skoglund advertised the lack of a “Swedish Beveridge” at a meeting of the Social Welfare Committee. See Riksarkivet, [hereafter RA] 11853/3, minutes, 2 10, 1944, p. 5Google Scholar (cf. p. 1 in the drafts for these minutes, RA 11853/3, 2–5 Oct.).

12 See the forthcoming works by Esping-Andersen, G., “The Three Political Economies of the Welfare State”Google Scholar, in Kolberg, J.E. (ed.) Between Work and Social CitizenshipGoogle Scholar; and Svallfors, S., Vem älskar välfärdsstaten? (Lund, 1989)Google Scholar. To be fair, Baldwin hints at this problem in his dissertation: PSSCOEWS, pp. 481495.Google Scholar

13 For example, it is very unlikely that a book like Fraser's, RonaldIn Search of a Past (London, 1984)Google Scholar could have been written in Sweden. The way class differences changed between pre- and postwar Britain and Sweden, respectively, differs strikingly. A book akin to Fraser's, Tom Nairn's recent The Enchanted Glass (London, 1988)Google Scholar, with its analysis of the form of the British state, indirectly highlights the difference between the two countries in the relationship between monarchy and democracy.

14 The workers' movement as the inheritor of the egalitarian and democratic traditions in Swedish society, earlier upheld by the peasantry, is elaborated in Therborn, G., “Social-demokratin träder fram”, Arkiv för studier i arbetarrörelsens historia (English edition in Annalli Giangiacomo Feltrinelli 1983–1984), no. 27–28 (1984)Google Scholar. A similar idea for Scandinavia as a whole has been put forward by Rokkan, Stein. Cf. Stat, nasjon, klasse (Oslo, 1987).Google Scholar

15 This is stressed in a letter to the author from Per Nyström, Möller's Under-Secretary of State 1945–1950 (17.8.1988). Cf. Nyström, P., Historia och biografi (Lund, 1989)Google Scholar; Rothstein, B., “Att administrera välfärdsstaten: några lärdomar från Gustav Möller” in Arkiv för studier i arbetarrörelsens historia, no. 36–37 (1986), pp. 6884Google Scholar, and Hermansson, J. and Svensson, T., “Möller och socialpolitikens principfrågor”, Tiden, 81 (1989), no. 1, pp. 5965.Google Scholar

16 Elmér, ibid., esp. pp. 54–75. Cf. Heclo, H., Modern Social Policies in Britain and Sweden (New Haven, 1974), esp. pp. 211226Google Scholar. Heclo emphasizes the “informed defence” put up by the administrators of pension policy – the Director-General of the National Pension Board – against the intense Conservative attacks on the disastrous effects of public pensions, but also stresses the role of Möller's learning as Minister of Social Affairs in the 1920s for later developments.

17 Baldwin has a short paragraph on this dilemma but does not draw the full implications, IRSH., p. 145Google Scholar. The resistance from Wigforss as Minister of Finance against the more costly pension alternative (III) had a clear background not only in the necessity to finance this and other expensive social policy reforms (child allowances, sickness insurance, etc.) but also in the fact that the Liberal and Conservative parties, combined their backing for reforms with active efforts for lower taxation immediately after the war. Cf. Elmér, ibid., p. 88, and Rodriguez, E., Offentlig inkomstexpansion (Uppsala, 1980), esp. pp. 112123.Google Scholar

18 Baldwin, , PSSCOEWS, pp. 153168Google Scholar. Cf. Englund, K., Arbetarförsäkringsfrågan i svensk politik, 1884–1901 (Uppsala, 1976), esp. pp. 126129Google Scholar and ch. 14, and Elmér, ibid., pp. 16–54, 116–146 and 149. The 1913 pension system had a dual character: universal contributory pensions based on premiums paid, and tax-financed, means-tested supplementary pensions.

19 Income testing was discussed a great deal in the Ministry of Social Affairs in the mid-1940s, in particular regarding housing support. Cf. Möller's speech in Minutes from the Nordic Meeting of Ministers of Social Affairs 1947, mimeo, and Nyström, P., “Goda bostäder åt alla”, Arkiv för studier i arbetarrörelsens historia, no. 41 (1989)Google Scholar. Nyström has also stressed that the inspiration behind the shift in principle from means- to income-test goes back to the Danish social policy expert K.K. Steincke, who may be described as a mentor for Gustav Möller in this field of policy. Nyström, P., “Välfärdsstaten och dess styrningsmekanismer”, in Björnsson, A. (ed.), I folkets tjänst (Stockholm, 1983), pp. 221234.Google Scholar

20 Public expenditure on poor relief was greatly reduced as a share of total social expenditure between 1900 and 1940: from 60 to well below 20 percent. By 1950, after the 1948 pension payouts, poor relief costs had dropped to below five percent, see graph 2 in Olsson, S.E., “Sweden”, in Flora, P. (ed.), Growth to Limits. The Western European Welfare State Since World War II, Vol. 1 (Berlin & New York, 1986), pp. 1116, esp. p. 6.Google Scholar

21 A.-K. Hatje, ibid., esp. pp. 32–34 and 209–213.

22 Baldwin gives in his article the impression that the pre-1948 pension system was limited to the poorest, defined very narrowly. See pp. 129 (“the poor alone”), p. 136 (“cover more than the most indigent in any but the most miserly fashion”), and p. 143 (“targetted at the poorest”). In 1939, more than 93 percent of the over-67s were entitled to a pension benefit. Of these, more than a third (37 percent) received only the non-means-tested benefit, based on previous premium payments. All these benefits were obviously meager – before the war on average 10 percent of an industrial worker's wage – but every Swede could claim them. Thus, to a significant degree, “vertical universalism” had already been achieved before World War II (see also Fig. 1). Cf. Olsson, S.E., “Svensk socialpolitik i internationell belysning: ålderspensioner 1930–1985”, Institutet för social forskning (Stockholm, 1985)Google Scholar, mimeo, and Palme, J., “Rätt, behov och förtjänst – ålderspensionerna i välfärdsutvecklingen”, Institutet för social forskning (Stockholm, 1987), mimeo.Google Scholar

23 Alternative I from the Social Welfare Committee, definitely the proposal closest to the old pension system, also included a uniform flat-rate benefit (although rather small compared to the other two alternatives), but this proposal was never seriously considered outside the Committee. Cf. Möller, G., “De planerade socialreformerna”, Tiden, 38 (1946), no. 2.Google Scholar

24 SOS (Sveriges Officiella Statistik), Allmän folkpensionering 1939–1950 (Stockholm, 1951), p. 36.Google Scholar

25 Or, in terms of the Titmussian social policy model as developed by Mishra and Korpi, it is not the subdimensions “Range of statutory services” or “Population covered by statutory programs” (Mishra) or “Proportion of population affected” or “Dominant types of programs” (Korpi) that is at stake, but rather “use of means-test” (Mishra) or “importance of social control” (Korpi). See in both cases table 1 in Mishra, R., Society and Social Policy (London, 1981), p. 101CrossRefGoogle Scholar and in Korpi, W., “Social Policy and Distributional Conflict in the Capitalist Democracies. A Preliminary Conceptual Framework”, West European Politics, 3 (1980), no. 3, pp. 296316, esp. p. 303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Svensson, G., “Utländska bilder av Sverige. Bespeglingar i del moderna”, in Himmelstrand, U. and Svensson, G. (eds), Sverige – vardag och Struktur (Stockholm, 1988), pp. 139161, esp. p. 148Google Scholar. This rather uneven exposition of “Sweden as a world model” is quite explicit regarding the slow take-off of the export of this image after World War II.

27 Cf. the lively appreciation of social welfare and daily life in a report from a journey to Sweden, as well as critical comments on Crosland's, C.A.R.The Future of Socialism (London, 1956)Google Scholar, by the young Anderson, Perry: “Sweden: Mr. Crossland's Dreamland”, New Left Review (1961), nos 7, pp. 513, and 9, pp. 3545Google Scholar. Cf. Strand, D., “Välfärd och apati”, in Erlander, T. et al. (eds), Idé och handling. Till Ernst Wigforss på 80-årsdagen (Stockholm, 1960)Google Scholar. Furthermore, the continental European refugees in Scandinavia during World War II – for instance Willy Brandt and Bruno Kreisky – came to power in the 1960s.

28 The ‘strong society’ was a concept used by Prime Minister Tage Erlander to characterize the Swedish welfare state. See Erlander, T., 1949–54 (Stockholm, 1974), esp. pp. 369388.Google Scholar

29 Wigforss's remarks on Bagge's unsuccessful ambition to play the role of deputy prime minister – as leader of the largest non-socialist party – in the wartime national coalition government hints at the issue of hegemony. See Wigforss, E., Minnen, part III (Stockholm, 1954), pp. 278279Google Scholar. The regrouping within the Swedish party system is discussed from the other (i.e. Social Democratic) angle by G. Therborn, “Den svenska socialde-mokratin träder fram”, ibid., esp. pp. 34–35. From a conservative insider's perspective, Ivar Andersson has written several admirable works – both in the “Life and Letters” – tradition and autobiographical – that cover this era of conservative decline: see Arvid Lindman och hans tid (Stockholm, 1956), esp. chs. XVI-XVIIIGoogle Scholar, Otto Järte – en man för sig (Stockholm, 1965)Google Scholar, Åsyna vittne (Stockholm, 1967)Google Scholar, and the work cited by Baldwin, , IRSH, p. 145, n. 71.Google Scholar

30 Lewin, L., Planhushållningsdebatten (Uppsala, 1967), esp. pp. 186240.Google Scholar

31 SOU 1945:46, Socialvårdskommitténs betänkande XI: Utredning och förslag angående lag om folkpensionering (Stockholm, 1945), p. 276Google Scholar. Cf. SOU 1944:15, Utredning och förslag ang allman sjukförsäkring (Stockholm, 1944), p. 353Google Scholar and Elmér, ibid., p. 86. Here, it is appropriate to add that the Right party's final decision to support alternative III was taken after the Employer's Confederation (SAF) and the Trade Union Confederation (LO) had delivered their support for the same proposal.

32 Sainsbury, D., Swedish Social Democratic Ideology and Election Politics 1944–1948 (Stockholm, 1980), p. 61Google Scholar. Cf. Nyström, P., “Gustav Möller i Marx-sällskapet”, in Meddelande från Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek no. 2/3 (1977), p. 67Google Scholar and, on white-collar unionization, Nilsson, T., Från kamratförening till facklig rörelse (Lund, 1986).Google Scholar

33 However, in the same breath as the Conservative party leader mentioned the middle class, he pitched the elderly against the young and active generation arguing for a productive social policy. RA, Moderata samlingspartiet, Partiledarna, Domö/5, ms. for a speech, 3 October 1945 (cf. Baldwin, , IRSH, p 134, n. 35).Google Scholar

34 Zetterberg, K., Liberalism i kris (Stockholm, 1975), esp. pp. 142145.Google Scholar

35 SOU 1945:46, ibid. Cf. Elmér, ibid., pp. 81–82. This division within the Social Welfare Committee is simplified by Baldwin into pure party lines: he omits the fact that alternative III was supported by one Social Democrat and one civil servant (as well as the fact that the other civil servant on the Committee supported alternative II). See Baldwin, , IRSH, p. 132Google Scholar. This is only one example of the disturbing “non-Socratic”, “American” habit of “stressing points” and painting in black and white. Likewise, Baldwin fails to mention that Elmér twice in his magnum opus gives credit to the secretary of the Social Welfare Committee (and partly to one of the civil servants) as the originator of alternative III (ibid., pp. 81 and 126, n. 13) – in marked contrast to Baldwin's unproven suggestion that the Conservative representatives had this role. For example, none of the Conservative representatives were present at the meeting when the Committee took the decision to work out alternatives II and III, see RA 11853/3, minutes, 14 Sept, 1945. Furthermore, from the minutes of the Social Welfare Committee, where the discussion was very open-minded, it seems that one of the civil servants (Höjer) early on opted for income-tested housing allowances as the sole ‘tested’ part of the pension benefit. See RA 11853/3, minutes, 1 June 1944, pp. 3–4. The role of the experts – “state managers” – is a reminder of the potential of Theda Skocpol's theoretical approach. Cf. Weir, M., Orloff, A.S. and Skocpol, T. (eds), The Politics of Social Policy in the United States (Princeton, 1988).Google Scholar

36 Governmental power and Parliamentary strength are not the sole variables for the strength and weakness of the Left and Right. However, it is instructive to compare the parliamentary situations in Sweden in connection with the two major pension decisions. In 1913, just after the change to universal male suffrage, the Social Democrats were still outnumbered by both the Liberals and the Conservatives. In 1946, the Social Democrats had as many seats in the Lower Chamber as all the other parties combined (including the Communists) and outnumbered them in the Upper Chamber. This highly relevant fact is omitted in Baldwin's article. See Carlsson, G., “Partiförskjutningar och tillväxtprocesser”, Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, 1963, No 2–3Google Scholar. Furthermore, unionization had increased considerably between 1913 and 1946. Cf. Korpi, W., The Working Class in Welfare Capitalism (London, 1978)Google Scholar, and Kjellberg, A., Facklig organisering i tolv länder (Lund, 1983).Google Scholar

37 A lot of research hints at this decisive relative shift of the Agrarians in the Swedish party system, although no monograph has covered this process in terms of hegemony and political dominance. There is still no authoritative biography of the party leader Bramstorp. However, this essential hegemonic shift from right to left is considered briefly in G. Therborn “Den svenska socialdemokratin träder fram”, ibid., pp. 30–32. Cf. Fryklund, B. et al. , “Från bondeförbund till centerparti”, Zenit, 34 (1973), pp. 423Google Scholar, and Fryklund, B. and Peterson, T., Populism och missnöjespartier i Norden (Lund, 1982)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 12. On the more recent Agrarian shift in the other direction – from left to right – see also the autobiography by the former Conservative party leader Bohman, G., Maktskifte (Stockholm, 1984), esp. pp. 5969Google Scholar. On Nordic agrarian pension policy, see also Kangas, O. “Politik and ekonomi i pensionsförsäkringen”, Swedish Institute for Social Research, Occasional papers No. 5 (Stockholm, 1988)Google Scholar, Olofsson, G. and Rasmussen, J., “Det svenska pensionssystemet: historia, Struktur och dilemmor”, University of Copenhagen, Institute of Sociology (Copenhagen, 1988)Google Scholar, mimeo, and the discussion on this issue in the articles by S. Kuhnle, L. Nörby Johansen, M. Alestalo and H. Uusitalo in P. Flora (ed.), ibid.

38 Sainsbury, ibid., p. 57.

39 Lewin, ibid., pp. 190–191.

40 Elmér, ibid., pp. 124–125. However, the Conservative MP Hagård did not give any indication of the direction of change. See Riksdagens Protokoll AK 1944:11, 03 22 1946, pp. 9091Google Scholar. On this occasion the senior Conservative argued for changes in the income-testing procedure in order to encourage the expansion of entrepreneurial pensions, ibid., pp. 86–87.

41 When analyzing a singular political event, the Fingerspitzgefühl of the main actors also needs to be considered. According to another leading conservative – Ivar Anderson in Åsyna vittne – nature had bestowed this important political gift generously on the senior conservative in the Social Welfare Committee, see p. 190. A Conservative attempt similar to that on the pension issue was made with the aim of taking over the child allowance question, but this time another conservative politician failed. See Hatje, ibid., ch. III, esp. p. 97, n. 51. According to the retrospective view of the leader of the Liberal party, Bertil Ohlin, it was the senior Conservative representative who first presented the idea of a completely non-income-tested pension benefit. In the same breath, Ohlin complains about the prestige of Gustav Möller on social policy issues. See Memoarer 1940–1951 (Stockholm, 1975), p. 133Google Scholar. Cf. Ohlin's appreciation of Möller in Parliament when the pension decision was taken. AK 1946: 27, 20 06 1946, pp. 4344.Google Scholar

42 See also note 35. The first written document in the archives of the Social Welfare Committee is a memorandum by the secretary. However, the Committee's secretariat informed Möller early on about the content of “alternative III”. When the Ministry took over work on the bill after the Committee's report had been published, this was the main alternative from the start, although Möller had some ideas of his own and was prepared to give way to the majority of the Social Democratic leadership, which supported “alternative II”. Möller's main ambition was to increase the benefits for the poor and needy, not to extend pension benefits to the well-to-do. But there is no indication that he actively wanted to keep the income-test alive, quite the contrary. Cf. Elmér, ibid., p. 81, pp. 86–90, and Möller's, retrospective remarks in “Inkomstprövade pensioner?”, Arbe-tarrörelsens årsbok 1971 (Lund, 1971), pp. 180182Google Scholar. According to the latter document, the cabinet was seriously split and Möller managed to get the issue transferred from the leadership circle to the Parliamentary group.

43 Elmér, ibid., p. 126, n. 13. On the remarkable career of the Agrarian on the Social Welfare Committee – a scandalized Social Democratic entrepreneur who in 1932 became an Agrarian MP and subsequently displayed strong pro-nazi sympathies – see Hellström, G., Jordbrukspolitik i industrisamhället (Stockholm, 1976), pp. 161169.Google Scholar

44 Rather ironically, on this occasion the junior Conservative hailed the work of the chairman of the Social Welfare Committee – an old Social Democrat who had supported income-tested pensions. Riksdagens protokoll, AK 1946:27, 20 06 1946, p. 26.Google Scholar

45 Cf. note 42 above. Baldwin gives an overview of the tensions within the labour movement on this issue, IRSH (pp. 137139)Google Scholar. This is the only occasion in the article where Baldwin really takes issue with Elmér's thesis. However, I cannot share his view that Elmér's underlying assumption is that the Social Democrats of course “supported the reforms that eventually resulted” (p. 138, n. 49) if this means “alternative III”. Elmér thoroughly scrutinizes the process that led to this position – although he did not investigate one of the sources that has been available to Baldwin, the archives of the Right Party.

46 According to the retrospective view of Gösta Rehn, Per Albin Hansson from the start envisaged the advantages of alternative III (oral communication). However, the written documents indicate that the Social Democratic Party Chairman supported alternative II when the leadership circle discussed the pension reform.

47 One explicit reason for not accepting Möller as the heir of Per Albin Hansson was that Wigforss considered that Möller limited himself to social policy issues instead of regarding the totality of the party's policy positions. See Minnen, Part III (Stockholm, 1954), p. 296Google Scholar. Cf. Gjöres, A., Vreda vindar (Stockholm, 1967), p. 163Google Scholar, Erlander, T., 1940–49 (Stockholm, 1973), p. 254Google Scholar and 1949–54 (Stockholm, 1974), p. 246Google Scholar, Jonasson, G., Per Edvin Sköld 1946–1951 (Uppsala, 1976), pp. 1124, 5670, 135138, 152154, 185186Google Scholar, Nilsson, T., Männniskor och händelser i Norden (Stockholm, 1977), pp. 112117Google Scholar, and Andersson, S., På Per Albins tid (Stockholm, 1980), pp. 276289Google Scholar. Andersson is also very detailed about the tensions within the cabinet after 1946, ibid., pp. 292–301. Cf. Möller, G., “Dyrtidstilläggen” in Arbetarrörelsens årsbok 1971 (Stockholm, 1971), pp. 187189Google Scholar. Already in early 1946, however, Möller had responded to this state-financial criticism and stated that maybe alternative II had to be accepted in view of the strain on public resources. See Tiden, 02 1946.Google Scholar

48 On the tensions between the elderly editorialists at Svenska Dagbladet and the new generation of Conservatives, see Sandlund, E., Svenska Dagbladets historia, part III (Stockholm, 1984), pp. 204207Google Scholar. Cf. Anderson, I., Från det nära förflutna (Stockholm, 1969), esp. pp. 216219.Google Scholar

49 Elmér, ibid., pp. 86–90.

50 Elmér, ibid., pp. 76, 126 and 170. The lobbying by the emergent pensioners' associations is not discussed at all by Baldwin.

51 Elmér, ibid., p. 171.

52 Elmér, ibid., p. 86.

53 Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek, Partistyrelsen, Minutes, 5 03 1946Google Scholar. Cf. Elmér, ibid., p. 90.

54 For a recent illuminating essay on this topic, see Ambjörnsson, R., Den skölsamme arbetaren (Stockholm, 1988).Google Scholar

55 Elmér, ibid., pp. 146–156.

56 (Minneapolis, , 1983Google Scholar). For a critical review from a neo-liberal perspective of this fairly non-partisan account of Swedish social democratic social policy, see Langby, E., “Sweden: Libertarianism on Rocky Soil”, in The Public Interest, 80 (1985), pp. 100103.Google Scholar

57 Heckscher, ibid., esp. pp. 41–52. Heckscher's contributions to the social policy discussions of the 1940s are included in RA, Igor Holmstedts Samling om Högerpartiet, 2Google Scholar. The conservative claim – not repeated by Heckscher – that their representatives in the Social Welfare Committee made a major contribution to the abolition of means – and income-testing in the basic pension system has been repeated continually since the inception of the new pension system. Apart from the sources mentioned by Baldwin, see also Loman, N. (ed.), I frihetens tjänst (Stockholm, 1979), p. 58.Google Scholar

58 On the long route from voluntary to compulsory sickness insurance, cf. Lindqvist, R., “Konflikt och kompromiss vid den allmänna sjukförsäkringens tillkomst”, Arkiv för studier i arbetarrörelsens historia, no. 41–42 (1989), pp. 5281Google Scholar, and, on unemployment insurance, Edebalk, P.O., “Från motstånd till genombrott: den svenska arbetslöshets-försäkringen 1935–54”, Meddelanden från socialhögskolan (Lund, 1988), 3, esp. pp. 3233.Google Scholar

59 Baldwin, , PSSCOEWS, pp. 496521Google Scholar. Cf. Marklund, S., “Welfare State Policies in the Tripolar Class Model of Scandinavia”, Politics & Society, 16 (1988), no. 4, pp. 451468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60 Kangas, O. and Palme, J., “The Public-Private Mix in Pension Policy”Google Scholar, in J.E. Kolberg (ed.), ibid.