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How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’
While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.
A march in Ådalen, Sweden, in 1931.
Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”
Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Kurt Wallender and Jo Nesbro will know. Critical left-wing authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial city, looking in vain for substandard housing. Sometimes resisting the evidence of my eyes, I made up stories that “accounted for” the differences I saw: “small country,” “homogeneous,” “a value consensus.” I finally gave up imposing my frameworks on these countries and learned the real reason: their own histories.
Then I began to learn that the Swedes and Norwegians paid a price for their standards of living through nonviolent struggle. There was a time when Scandinavian workers didn’t expect that the electoral arena could deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1 percent in charge, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.
In both countries, the troops were called out to defend the 1 percent; people died. Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg told the Swedish story vividly in Ådalen 31, which depicts the strikers killed in 1931 and the sparking of a nationwide general strike. (You can read more about this case in an entry by Max Rennebohm in the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The Norwegians had a harder time organizing a cohesive people’s movement because Norway’s small population—about three million—was spread out over a territory the size of Britain. People were divided by mountains and fjords, and they spoke regional dialects in isolated valleys. In the nineteenth century, Norway was ruled by Denmark and then by Sweden; in the context of Europe Norwegians were the “country rubes,” of little consequence. Not until 1905 did Norway finally become independent.
When workers formed unions in the early 1900s, they generally turned to Marxism, organizing for revolution as well as immediate gains. They were overjoyed by the overthrow of the czar in Russia, and the Norwegian Labor Party joined the Communist International organized by Lenin. Labor didn’t stay long, however. One way in which most Norwegians parted ways with Leninist strategy was on the role of violence: Norwegians wanted to win their revolution through collective nonviolent struggle, along with establishing co-ops and using the electoral arena.
In the 1920s strikes increased in intensity. The town of Hammerfest formed a commune in 1921, led by workers councils; the army intervened to crush it. The workers’ response verged toward a national general strike. The employers, backed by the state, beat back that strike, but workers erupted again in the ironworkers’ strike of 1923–24.
The Norwegian 1 percent decided not to rely simply on the army; in 1926 they formed a social movement called the Patriotic League, recruiting mainly from the middle class. By the 1930s, the League included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike breakers—this in a country of only 3 million!
The Labor Party, in the meantime, opened its membership to anyone, whether or not in a unionized workplace. Middle-class Marxists and some reformers joined the party. Many rural farm workers joined the Labor Party, as well as some small landholders. Labor leadership understood that in a protracted struggle, constant outreach and organizing was needed to a nonviolent campaign. In the midst of the growing polarization, Norway’s workers launched another wave of strikes and boycotts in 1928.
The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though they couldn’t pay dues. This decision paid off in mass mobilizations. When the employers’ federation locked employees out of the factories to try to force a reduction of wages, the workers fought back with massive demonstrations.
Many people then found that their mortgages were in jeopardy. (Sound familiar?) The Depression continued, and farmers were unable to keep up payment on their debts. As turbulence hit the rural sector, crowds gathered nonviolently to prevent the eviction of families from their farms. The Agrarian Party, which included larger farmers and had previously been allied with the Conservative Party, began to distance itself from the 1 percent; some could see that the ability of the few to rule the many was in doubt.
By 1935, Norway was on the brink. The Conservative-led government was losing legitimacy daily; the 1 percent became increasingly desperate as militancy grew among workers and farmers. A complete overthrow might be just a couple years away, radical workers thought. However, the misery of the poor became more urgent daily, and the Labor Party felt increasing pressure from its members to alleviate their suffering, which it could do only if it took charge of the government in a compromise agreement with the other side.
This it did. In a compromise that allowed owners to retain the right to own and manage their firms, Labor in 1935 took the reins of government in coalition with the Agrarian Party. They expanded the economy and started public works projects to head toward a policy of full employment that became the keystone of Norwegian economic policy. Labor’s success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest. (There is an entry on this case as well at the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The 1 percent thereby lost its historic power to dominate the economy and society. Not until three decades later could the Conservatives return to a governing coalition, having by then accepted the new rules of the game, including a high degree of public ownership of the means of production, extremely progressive taxation, strong business regulation for the public good and the virtual abolition of poverty. When Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?)
Labor stepped in, seized the three largest banks, fired the top management, left the stockholders without a dime and refused to bail out any of the smaller banks. The well-purged Norwegian financial sector was not one of those countries that lurched into crisis in 2008; carefully regulated and much of it publicly owned, the sector was solid.
Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you meet them, the fact remains that their society’s high level of freedom and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the people to govern for the common good.
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195 Comments so far
Show AllOh let's just run away to Cuba together.
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/5192
There is little about Sweden in this article and, since Karl Rove worked recently to get their Conservative government into power, I wonder whether we can expect the Swedes to start losing out in short order.
Agree --
Anyone who thinks the violent RW is going away should reflect on our
own 50 and more years of RW political violence - Nazi-style propaganda,
corporate-press and stolen elections -- none of which could have been
done had there been any challenge from a truly free press.
We are watching the successful rise of the Fourth Reich and one day
humans have to begin to deal with the question of how to handle the
few violent among us.
This is our gene pool -- and that's what it provides -- a few violent who
are always hugely destructive to nature, humans, animal-life and the
planet.
Global Warming is the biggest threat to our survival and it has been put
in place by the exploitation of this fascist economic system we call
"capitalism."
In the 1930's/1940's the Third Reich came close to capturing half the world;
this time around they will not permit any nation to survive to save the rest.
An interesting and good article, but when the author keeps referring to the '1%' it starts to sound like a dumbed-down political history lesson for small children.
I spend a lot of time in Sweden and can say things dont look quite so rosy there nowadays in that they have a Conservative government in its second term and they are now busy privatising social infrastructure and de-regulating as Conservatives are wont to do, and so it is now the case, for example, that you must pay a fee when you visit a doctor and pay for prescriptions. Not forgetting how they are also trying to get hold of Assange so they can ship him off to the USA to whom many in the Swedish Conservative hiearchy have strong personal connections.
You pay a fee if you are not a Swedish Citizen. You are also dead wrong about everything else you are saying, Their conservatism is more like Bernie Saunders than scalia/boehner/mcconnell's gang of 1% thieves. They did privatize vodka making.
Hobgobline is spreading the usual TeePee Poop.
No, Swedes pay a fee, so it's you who is 'dead wrong.' My wife is Swedish (that's why I spend a lot of time there, I was there over Christmas) and she pays a fee. Her dad pays a fee. Her brother pays a fee. Strangely, when I ( a non-Swede) needed a Doctor, I didn't pay a fee because of my EHIC card. When was you last in Sweden?
I was also right on the other point: Swedish Conservatives do have strong links to the US administration, specifically, as the above poster pointed out, Karl Rove, and that is surely playing a part in their attempts to extradite Julain Assange. Or are you niave enough to think it is a genuine charge?
I don't see the point of your whole comment: I was bemoaning what the Conservatives are doing to Sweden, dismantling previous social infrastructure, a source of anger for me and my partner, and you seem to dismiss it as though in support of them. Baffling?
And then you start waffling on about America. I don't live there and I have little interest in it, so why bring it up in this comment about Sweden and how does it relate to me? Are you Americans incapable of thinking about anything other than your own self-centred precoccupatiuon with your own unpleasant country? Why does everything have to relate back to the USA, the major underminer of social justice in countries like the Scandanavian ones, around the globe? What a typical, ugly nationalist you are.
Good points.
One of the problems I see in many comments is the taking of the individual nation as the *unit of analysis*. Thus, we get comparisons of the U.S. vs. Norway vs. Sweden and so on.
While not entirely useless, this kind of comparison nonetheless ignores the reality of a *global* economic/political system. In the 19th century, that system was dominated by the British Empire; after WW II it has been dominated by the U.S. The international system of sovereign states and the transnational capitalist system together form a single unified reality.
Thus, it can be very misleading to look at a single nation and discuss its economic system as if it were largely autonomous from the global economic system. While it is certainly true that specific nations (sub-systems) can have more or less egalitarian structures, it is also certainly true that all these nations depend on the global structure of capitalism, thus cannot be seen as "alternatives" in their own right.
Really inspiring bit of history about a few million people in a small area before the mind numbing din of mass media. It's really too bad that their children have forgotten the lessons of their forefathers. It just took them a little longer than we did.
Unlike the U.S., Sweden and Norway's 1% didn't have the public thoroughly convinced that 'true freedom' means massive income disparities or that being a good Scandinavian means to never question the 1% in terms of economic or military policy. Now in these countries the media has public access as well, so that someone like Noam Chomsky could speak for hours on public TV with most Scandinavians tuning in where as in the U.S, you will never get a Chomsky type person on the T.V. except for very rare 'sound bites' which are limited to prevent a coherent message from reaching the viewing audience.
The U.S. would obviously benefit from a Scandinavian type of system (any nation would!) but unfortunately most Americans have bought into the illusion that they live in a free and democratic society that the rest of the world envies.
"... unfortunately most Americans have bought into the illusion that they live in a free and democratic society that the rest of the world envies."
Which just goes to prove, in the US at least, bullshit beats brains.
Your last paragraph, no, your last two lines are disturbing. How could this be true with nearly half of us in poverty? With the Bill of Rights gone? With my grandchildren facing an apocalyptic future?
And yet I know it is true.
We have a large minority of ignorant patsies and fools in the US. How else can we explain why the poor and middle class would support the GOPers. A party whose primary functions is to enhance, protect and create tax breaks for the 1%, at the expense of the poor and middle class. How dumb is that???
Bovia the same is to be said for Oilybomberbots and Dimocrats. There is no federal Democracy in imperial fascist USA. Militant nonviolence has defeated the bloated power structure many places, many times. But first we must disabuse ourselves of the absurd notion that there is a functioning democratic federal government.
How else to explain? It was the US which invented propaganda. Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, used manipulation of the unconscious and Pavlov's conditioning techniques to convince Americans to support WWI, women to smoke tobacco, Americans to eat bacon and eggs and use disposable Dixie Cups to drink fluoridated water, and helped United Fruit Company facilitate the successful overthrow of the democratically elected president of Guatemala.
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” - Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928
To make such manipulation even more successful, the American government/economic/educational system has maintained a 60 million strong White rural/urban underclass that's functionally illiterate (according to the late, great Joe Bageant) and ready to accept whatever nonsense is fed to them.
Thanks for the informative and valuable history of how a worker- and familiy-friendly social democracy can arise ... but only if and when workers and families are willing to put a sustained effort into organizing and mobilizing for social and political change.
It would be awesome to see that kind of change happen in the United States. Unfortunately, most Americans can barely be mobilized to get off the couch and turn off their TV. And labor history? Pshaw, we don't believe in "history". It's all about the latest new-fangled electronic gadget, our obsessive texting and tweeting, and the hottest new celebrity. Who needs to understand "history"? We're being very effectively entertained, thank you. Very effectively entertained while the 1% continue to expand their empire of control.
You certainly understand the problem, Donny, and summarize it very nicely.
If we can just figure out a way to discredit the MSM to the majority, we might begin to make some progress.
It seems the right wingers have figured out how to discredit the MSM. Issues that were once considered unarguable, such as climate change, or the social value of education, or even established scientific theories such as evolution are today casually dismissed by the the right. Or we can use the example of Newt Gingrich's attacks on FOX commentator Juan Williams and CNN's John King, where he simply attacked the MSM messenger and dismissed them out of hand, even though the issues they brought up were politically legitimate. If it is so easy for the right to discredit the MSM when its being truthful, why is the left unable to do so even when the MSM is blatantly lying?
Perhaps because they don't even try. Which begs the question: Why don't they? My answer would be there is no longer any true "left", only posers.
In the USA the 1% own the mass media. They own the Republican Party and quite a good portion of the Democratic Party too. The 1% have seen what has happened in the rest of the world and they are determined that it will not happen in the USA.
Also worthy of mention is that their military spending is much lower than the USA. 4 percent of budget versus 19 percent.
Guns or butter?
The entire World spends less combined on War than the US when all funding on and off budget is added together. Must keep the 1%er's who own the military-industrial complex happy. If some country has something we want, we have to be ready to kill, maim destroy and steal to get it. Sharing Democracy means installing military dictatorships. How many have we installed in the last 60 years? How many people have been murdered by the training and arms we gave them? This 1% ownership crap has been going on since the Constitution was created. Ain't America Great? We created Madison Avenue to peddle our bullshit around the World, but especially to the American Ignorant.
Scandinavia also have (had?) citizen soldiers. Service is mandatory for all citizens. I seem to recall that after service, citizens could also keep the guns. Is that still true?
Swedes had national service for males until very recently but it is so lax that you don't actually have to do it and you can do community work instead or just opt out altogether. Don't think you're allowed to keep the guns though!
An exception that proves the rule.
And it too will disappear.
Mike
====
We will disappear a lot sooner then Sweden. I wish I was born there. I wish I could move there. They actually care about ALL their Citizens. Healthcare included with Citizenship means happier and longer-living People. College Costs included with Citizenship means kids graduate without a house-less mortgage. Licensed childcare cost $45 per month per child. During your first year of maternity leave, if you choose to take it, you receive 80% of your pay the first year, 60% the second. Everyone gets a minimum of three weeks vacation and 17 holidays. America wishes it's air and water were close to being as clean as Sweden's. America should try that. We might find ourselves in a HAPPIER Country. I suspect the 1% lovers will find some way to be pejorative, right after they gag.
Not necessarily. Many times exceptions are just the first examples of an evolutionary process that in the long term winds up with the exception becoming the rule.
Excellent article, Nathan, showing us, for a change, HOW the stranglehold of the 1% can be broken.
It was demonstrations, strikes and boycotts, along with "constant outreach and organizing " that did the trick in Norway.
We now have the demonstrations etc, but we fall short in the outreach and organizing. If we do not organize for political power, all the work that has gone into the occupy movement might have no effect.
What will be necessary to motivate progressives to work together to strengthen a progressive party that will effectively oppose the Rs and Ds?
Corporate coup d'etat described in this video of an interview of Chris Hedges and Lawrence Lessing.
Chris Hedges describes this better in his 2010 book "The Death of the Liberal Class"
There is some video at the start from Occupy the Courts on the street, but most of this video is the general discussion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLFPN-XFGk0&list=UUvELRNEQucoFRPea8hG3ZGg&index=1&feature=plcp
After reading these comments, which are great, as usual, it seems things will have to get worse before they can get better. I'm all for critical mass. The one theme I keep coming across when it comes to the struggle for rights and equality throughout history is the need to strike. It worked for the American labor movement, India's defeat of the British and even more recently it has worked for the French, Egyptians, etc. I guess that's why we always hear: "American Dream", success equals hard work, the unemployed are lazy, etc. I wonder if the capitalist class will allow it to get bad enough so that the fat, lazy, ignorant, cynical American populace will engage in a general strike. Probably not. They have plenty of carrots.
Good article.
"By the 1930s, the League included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike breakers—this in a country of only 3 million!"
Norwegians armed themselves for protection from the 1%
"When Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?)"
Norwegians learned that conservatives and neo-liberals of the 1% are their enemies
"Labor’s success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest."
The well armed 99% took control of the government peacefully from the 1% and using popular consensus, established laws that benefitted everyone.
Direct democracy
You either misread, or are misrepresenting the article.
The author refers to the right wing organization formed to fight against Labor.
"By the 1930s, the League included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike breakers - this in a country of only 3 million!"
"...armed protection of strike breakers..."
Misread. Thank you.
There are two object lessons from the piece. The first is that the American 1% put whatever monies is necessary into their propaganda budgets, which their Scandinavian counter-parts did not. The second is that Scandinavian labor never forgot that upper management was & still is their eternal enemy (unlike their American counter-parts who let wedge issue politics propagated by corporate shills lead to their evisceration), as greed never takes a respite. What the piece did not include is that 1% are in for the long haul and are looking to take down what labor has achieved, whether by the actions of a crazed gunman in Norway, Anders Brevik, or the Swedish Conservatives hiring Karl Rove. Which of the two is more harmful remains to be seen.
I'm pretty sure that Sweden and Norway are still capitalist countries, albeit with a bit more liberalism. Point in case, IKEA is Swedish and they have some nasty work practices and are imperialist just like every other global corporation.
Actually the traditional definition of "liberalism" is a belief in unfettered capitalism, along with civil liberties.
I mean it in the European usage.
Of public works to ameliorate the worst excesses of capitalism.
Actually, that is the USAn usage. In Europe, liberalism is strongly pro-capitalist. For example Margaret Thatcher was an extreme "liberal" in the European usage - its current extreme manifestation being called "neoliberalism".
The term Liberal varies from country to country. Thatcher wasn't a Liberal by UK definition, she was a Conservative. There are three major parties: Labour (socialist), Conservative (deregulation-low taxation), Liberal Democrats (centre ground). Before the formation of Labour it was between Conservative (right) and Liberals (left). That was the parliamentary tradition going back to the 1600's. In other European countries Liberal can mean free enterprise parties, Sweden being a perfect example. So Libs equate there to a kind of Conservative. More confusing still, is in many Scandanavian countries, the more extreme right parties are often called the workers party or the people's party even though they are mainly about anti-immigration etc. For a good inside view of Scandanavian politics .watch the series "Borgen", if you can get hold of it. Shown in many European countries but not sure about USA. I mean there, they even had to remake "Forbrytelsen" as 'The Killing' rather than show the excellent original with subtitles.
Liberalism means support for "free markets" and individualism. Always has.
Through the work of people like Rush Limbaugh et al., the word "liberal" has taken on a very different widespread meaning. Even before that, American "liberalism" began to be associated with the Keynesian welfare state policies of the the New Deal and Great Society etc.
Just to nitpick:
"Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Kurt Wallender and Jo Nesbro will know."
Ouch! Apparently it eluded both writer and editor that "Kurt Wallender" is a fictional character in books written by "critical left-wing author" Henning Mankell. And it's Jo Nesbø, not "Nesbro".
As a Norwegian Green & still member of the National Labour Union, Landsorganiasjonen, LO, I would like to focus on the importance of the Labour Union. The Norwegian (socialdemocratic) Labour Party, Arbeiderpartiet, Ap, deleloped in close connection with LO & they still have strong ties, as in Sweden! (Just now the new leader of the Swedish Socialdemocrats, picked today, is a leading Union man). That means: in USA it's important that you oppose the attacks on the Labour Unions! They are the bacbone of the protecting of the workes interests. & more: in Scaninavia, we have a "high" taxasition of all, over 30 %. This is the main reason why f.i. Norway & Sweden are not dragged down in the European Economic Crisis: the Scandianvian States are not bankrupt!
In the United States, labor unions are nearly nonexistent - only 11.5% of jobs total, and only about 6.5% of private sector jobs. The leadership of most US unions are corrupt and self-serving - and continue to cling to the awful Democratic Party that sells them out again and again.. This is an expected consequence of the in-fighting that arises when any movement loses power, but it is disgusting nonetheless.
We have effectively returned to the 1920's, and a whole new labor movement will need to be built again.
Unfortunately, some very vicious attacks against union organizing, union-busting, and the imposition of working conditions, are coming from some Swedish firms like Ikea and AAK.
Nothing promotes socialism like capitalism. All the leftwing movements that ever were owed their existence to the 1%. Americans may not show much interest or respect for history, but if things continue as they are, we will all get an up close and personal lesson in it.
Very true and succinctly stated...
Since the article deals with fairness, let me just point out that you voided the CC licence by originally posting the article without attribution. This means that this is now an unlicensed copy, and you don't have the right to publish it, even though you originally had if you had provided proper attribution. This is in extremely poor taste as the original author put very few restrictions on the usage. Essentially you decided to punch someone and steal the candy that they where willingly trying to gift you.
The proper conduct would be to issue an apology and contact the rights holder in the hopes that he will grant you a Waiver on the failed attribution.
It was a simple human error for crying out loud!!! Someone mixed author bylines between articles. They have since corrected it!
Are anal-retentive geeks like you for real? With comments like yours, no wonder the US-left is such an absolute cluster-fuck!
If Mr. Lakey is reading your comment, he is no doubt getting a good chuckle about it - and if he is miffed like you are about it, he is an uptight, egotistical asshole.
Are you a right wing or FBI agent provocateur? Like the other guy, I've never seen you here before.
This is a first time poster posting for the first and only time under an id "justtakingapiss". IOW, troll, flamebait.
Exactly. Another sockpuppet seeking to distract from the content of the article, instead we are supposed focus on the CC contract.
" Essentially you decided to punch someone and steal the candy that they where willingly trying to gift you."
That's one harsh and innaccurate analogy for an honest mistake that was corrected in a timely manner. I'd say that your anaolgy is like comparing carelessnesss to larceny - it's in very bad taste.
Essentially you come off like an arrogant know-it-all, or maybe worse, a copyright attorney.