[Peace-discuss] How Swedes and Norwegians broke the power of the '1 percent'

[David Johnson]

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

*	 <http://wagingnonviolence.org/author/georgelakey/> George Lakey
*	January 25, 2012

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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.

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
<http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/swedish-workers-general-strike-eco
nomic-justice-power-shift-dalen-1931> 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
<http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/norwegians-overthrow-capitalist-ru
le-1931-35> 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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