How Swedes and Norwegians broke the power of the ‘1 percent’

[LiberalArkie]

A march in Ådalen, Sweden, in 1931.

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.

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, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbø 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.

Snip

http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/how-swedes-and-norwegians-broke-the-power-of-the-1-percent/

[hunter]

1. Steeply progressive taxes, strong labor unions, and zero tolerance of corrupt banking practices...

... seem to be essential for a healthy society.

The U.S.A. is not a healthy society.

[hifiguy]

8. They are the bedrock principles, along with a sound educational system.

And we have none of them.

[pampango]

10. That's it in a nutshell. Every progressive country has them. Every backward country,

the US, China, Russia, the Third World, does not. As they say, it ain't rocket science.

[ErisDiscordia]

2. Sweden has been backsliding since at least the 80's when I was there for a year

It's a constant struggle.

The US has been a major force in that backslide--and the assassination of Palme.

The refugee crisis may just finish it off, which would be a great shame. We need a Sweden that is socialist, to encourage other nations (like ours).

[Jim Beard]

9. Yes, I have also been hearing about how the flood refugees has made funding for

some programs impossible.

[Bjornsdotter]

3. Different mindset

...different culture, different norms.

I've stopped trying to explain all of the differences.

[DFW]

4. If you can find the film "Ådalen '31" you should watch it

One of our assignments when I was taking Swedish in college was to go see this film, which was shown every year on campus.

It was a powerful depiction of the conditions prevailing then, the march and the tragedy of the reaction to it.
Ådalen '31 remains one of my favorite films of all time.
At the end, the reminder is displayed prominently: "Equality has not yet been achieved."

[Octafish]

5. ''Nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.''

The reason We the People haven't in the USA gotten off of the sofa, I believe, is that we can't. Most all are hypnotized by the television; misled by a corporate owned news media; messed up by medication, self-medication, and all manner of substance abuse; poisoned by lead and who knows what all in the water; using critical faculties devoid of many of the rudiments needed for logical thought by an under-funded, under-staffed and under-appreciated public school system to just know that is what we need to do.

[Gabi Hayes]

6. I'll give you my remote....

when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Freedom isn't free, but it costs a lot less than cable!

[Octafish]

7. It's the weirdest damn thing.

You can be shouting from their doorway that a blazing fireball from space is bearing down on some people and they'd keep their eyes on the television screen as they say, "Oh, yeah?" with their final breath.

Decades ago, I remember a study where people were asked how much money they'd need to give up tee vee forever.

The average number, going from dim memory, was $5 million.

Tee vee matters that much. The suits were shocked when the Internet came along, but only temporarily until they bought the damn thing out, along with the government.

[1939]

11. We did get off the sofa

Consider the US labor movement in the 1930s and the rather violent strikes to unionize our major industries. We got Social Security out of that as well. The boomers had it too good and bailed out on the working class.

[pampango]

12. "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.

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."

A great history of how Norway and Sweden achieved the progressive societies they have today. Thanks for posting this, LiberalArkie.

At one time Scandinavian workers did not believe that the electoral system would produce the results they wanted. They made it happen through direct action culminating in democratic victory.