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Scandinavian Journal of History
ISSN: 0346-8755 (Print) 1502-7716 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/shis20
THE ALTERNATIVE
Rikard Westerberg
To cite this article: Rikard Westerberg (2018): THE ALTERNATIVE, Scandinavian Journal of
History, DOI: 10.1080/03468755.2018.1532316
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03468755.2018.1532316
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Rikard Westerberg
THE ALTERNATIVE
How Nordic business interest associations
attempted to formulate an ideological programme,
1945–1975
Information agencies set up for business-friendly opinion moulding in Sweden worked
actively with similar organizations in the Nordic countries to formulate a pro-business
ideological programme after the Second World War. The intent of this so called
‘Alternative’was to counteract social democratic ideas of a more state-planned economy.
This article contributes to earlier research on how business interest associations in
corporatist countries responded to the development of the welfare state in the Keynesian
era. Over time, the programme became less about taking an ideological stance in defence of
free enterprise and more about dealing with the economic consequences of record growth.
Business involvement in cartelization proved difficult to combine with arguments for free
competition, free markets, and non-regulated prices. Collaboration as well as new
institutions for both formal and informal discussions between labour and capital during
the 1950s and 1960s, at least in Sweden, seems to have reduced the sense of urgency for
an ideological programme for business. In the end, no Nordic business programme was ever
realized.
Keywords business political activity, public opinion, Sweden, business interest
associations, business ideology, cartels
Introduction
As the Second World War drew to an end, labour leaders in Sweden presented a
post-war programme aimed at improving economic efficiency and counteracting the
anticipated downturn through increased government planning. This could be
accomplished partly through socialization. ‘To realize this program is to give
business a new organisation and to reshape society in a socialistic direction’,it
stated.
1
Business interests replied by launching a campaign for free enterprise, which came
to be known as planhushållningsmotståndet (planned economy resistance), or PHM for
short.
Scandinavian Journal of History, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1080/03468755.2018.1532316
© 2018 the Historical Associations of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden
In the other Nordic countries, organized capital and organized labour also clashed
on the issue of stately planning of the economy.
2
As a result, ‘information agencies’
3
set up by business interests in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland came together
to write an ideological programme named ‘the Alternative’as a counter-narrative to
the labour proposals. This paper depicts the previously unknown development of the
programme, its motivations and ideological sources, and discusses why, despite sub-
stantial efforts, it was never realized.
Organizations for influencing politics and public opinion
The Swedish information agencies, which officially were separated from the peak
organizations Svenska Arbetsgivareföreningen (The Swedish Employers’Association,
SAF) and Sveriges Industriförbund (The Association of Swedish Industries) during the
1940s, lived on long after the debate on the planned economy subsided. Still, research
on these organizations has been scarce, partly having to do with an earlier lack of
archive material. Until now. Svenskt Näringsliv (the Confederation of Swedish
Enterprise) has given access to the archive of Näringslivets Fond (The Swedish Free
Enterprise Fund, ‘the Fund’), thus enabling this article to be written.
4
Originally
founded in 1940 to safeguard the ownership of the conservative morning paper Svenska
Dagbladet, the Fund soon became a hub for promoting a business-friendly agenda
during the rest of the century. The archive also contains material from a number of
other organizations connected to the Fund, providing a unique opportunity to broaden
our empirical understanding of how business interest associations tried to influence
politics and public opinion in a corporatist setting during the post-war decades.
Here, ‘corporatism’refers to organized interests participating in political decision-
making processes. The hallmark of Swedish corporatism was the principle freedom
from direct state intervention on the labour market, guaranteed by the parties on the
labour market in the so-called Saltjsöbadsagreement from 1938.
5
One result of the earlier lack of access to or awareness of this archive material is
that scholars using only records from the peak organizations, such as Peter Swenson,
has concluded that Swedish business was, by and large, satisfied with having the Social
Democrats in power during the 1950s and 1960s.
6
His description of employers that
welcomed collective bargaining agreements, a strong centralized counterpart, and
several welfare reforms is, of course, not wrong. But he neglects that much of business
resistance against the Labour Movement was coordinated outside of the peak business
organization, at least until the 1970s. According to Swenson, the overall success of the
Swedish Labour Movement can be attributed to ‘their considerable restraint in divisive
parliamentary exploits –so as not to inflame capitalist opposition’.
7
As this paper will
show, it was the ‘parliamentary exploits’of the 1940s that drove business ideological
resistance, including attempts to formulate a programme of its own. This paper will
also argue that Swedish capitalists were not so much ‘against markets’as they were
ambivalent towards markets during the 1950s and 1960s.
Swenson’s main point is that the ‘politics of reform […] is founded on cross-class
alliances.
8
As this paper will show, such cross-class alliances did indeed grow stronger
during the 1950s and 1960s and lessened organized business’sense of urgency for an
ideological programme. The point, however, is that the strength of the alliances
varies over time. In the Swedish case, during times of a more radically inclined
2SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY
Labour Movement, such as the 1940s and 1970s, business stepped up its ideological
confrontation.
9
Using the newly opened archives, this paper also establishes the depth of coopera-
tion between Nordic information agencies. Previous research has concluded that ‘not
much is known […] except that some cooperation did exist’, and that it ‘never went
beyond partial cooperation’.
10
Business and labour relations in Sweden, 1945–1965
Much of the PHM campaign was coordinated through Näringslivets Fond and its
operational arm, Byrån för Ekonomisk Information (The Bureau for Economic
Information). According to the Fund’s bylaws, it was to ‘advance the freedom of
enterprise and other important common causes for private business’. Entry and
membership fees for the Fund were large enough to require backing from a major
Swedish company. Of the 30 trustees in 1944, seven were on the board of
Industriförbundet, three were on the board of SAF, and another six on both these
boards. Among these were also both the chairman and vice chairman of
Industriförbundet and the joint chair of SAF and the Fund, Gustaf Söderlund. These
30 also sat on a total of 260 company boards.
11
Of Sweden’s 28 largest joint-stock
companies in industry, shipping, and trade, 21 were members of the Fund in 1960.
12
In 1944, the Fund had translated and paid for the Swedish publication of F. A.
Hayek’sThe Road to Serfdom, and, as previous research has noted, the PHM campaign
was run on distinct Hayekian arguments. A more planned economy would ultimately
lead to dictatorship. However, as Leif Lewin points out, similar ideas had been
expressed in Sweden by well-known economists Gustav Cassel and Eli Heckscher
well before The Road to Serfdom was published; especially Heckscher’s importance for
liberal economic thought, both in Sweden and abroad, should not be underestimated.
13
According to Philip Mirowski and Dieter Plehwe, his book, Old and New Economic
Liberalism, from 1921, came to be one of the cornerstones of what would later be
called neoliberalism.
14
Heckscher was also a member of the Mont Pelerin Society,
1947–1950, an organization founded by Hayek for those who ‘see danger in the
expansion of government, not least in state welfare, in the power of trade unions and
business monopoly, and in the continuing threat and reality of inflation’.
15
The debate intensified when parliament passed a bill in 1947 which substantially
raised taxes on companies, inheritance, and wealth.
16
The SEK 24.8 million (roughly
EUR 50 million in present value) that business collected through the secret anti-tax
lobby organization, Garantistiftelsen 1946, to finance the business-friendly press and
non-socialist parties did not succeed in overturning the government. The Social
Democrats remained in power after the 1948 elections even though they and the
Communist Party lost 10 seats in the lower chamber.
17
However, although the taxes remained, muchofthepost-warprogrammewasshelved.
This could have been due to the business campaigns, but also that the planned economy
proposals were aimed at mitigating an anticipated downturn after the war which never came.
Low interest rates and increased purchasing power proposed by the programme seemed to
be the wrong medicine in the inflationary economy of the late 1940s.
18
Relations between the government and business improved after the elections. The
so-called ‘Thursday club’, during which business and government representatives could
THE ALTERNATIVE 3
meet for deliberations under the leadership of the new finance minister Per-Edvin
Sköld, got a symbolic meaning. His predecessor, Ernst Wigforss, ‘the planned
economy theoretician’, left government in 1949, and the other leading economic
thinker in the party, Gunnar Myrdal, was forced to leave two years earlier because
of criticized trade agreements with the Soviet Union.
19
These talks were eventually
replaced by informal meetings at the prime minister’s representational estate,
Harpsund, with leading people in industry, government, and interest organizations
between 1955 and 1964. From 1962, a more formal arrangement was put in place
with Ekonomiska planeringsrådet (The Council for Economic Planning) at the ministry of
finance.
Francis Sejersted argues that organized business in both Norway and Sweden
pursued a ‘double strategy’. While the corporatist channels were used for political
compromise, there was an underlying ideological but less visible struggle over who
should control the capital which led business to build up capacity for information
work.
20
In the latter part of the 1950s, the ideological conflict flared up again as SAF
openly sided with Liberals and Conservatives on supplementary pensions. Instead of a
compulsory state-run system with large pension funds, the employers proposed a
decentralized fund administration based on premium reserves negotiated through the
collective agreements. This way the bulk of the pension savings could be used by firms,
something which the government opposed as it sought control of the capital market.
Even after a referendum and an early election, the political situation remained locked,
but eventually a renegade Liberal MP voted for the government proposal in 1959.
21
The period 1950–1970 was also characterized by an unprecedented economic
upswing. With a peaceful labour market and an increasingly ambitious social reform
agenda, the so-called Swedish model gained international attention. Employers did not
oppose the Trade Union Confederation’s idea of a solidary wage policy, meaning that
less-productive industries had to pay the same wage increases as the exporting industry
as it reduced internal competition for manpower and transferred labour to high
productivity companies. This so-called Rhen-Meidner model intended to reduce over-
all demand for wage increases, keep inflation in check, and even out-wage differences
between different groups of wage earners. As a consequence, companies with low
profitability would shut down.
22
With an active labour market policy from the state,
those laid off would be encouraged to move to other parts of the country, something
which SAF considered ‘a self-evident issue’, according to its deputy manager and
economist Karl Olof Faxén.
23
Also, SAF had traditionally strived for uniformity in
wage setting, even before the Rhen-Meidner model.
In search of an ideology for business
Origins
As Christer Ericsson (and others) have noted, the economic crisis and financial scandals
of the late 1920s and early 1930s pushed back economic liberalism. The failure of the
market should now be compensated by public measures and political regulation.
24
In
Sven Anders Söderpalm’sDirektörsklubben (The Executives’Club), he depicts the first
information agency in Sweden. It was founded in 1933 to advance the interests of the
4SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY
Swedish exporting industry and consisted of the CEOs or chairmen of the five (later
six) major companies within the engineering industry. Direktörsklubben took it upon
itself to write a political programme of action for the Liberals and the Conservatives in
the mid-1930s with the assistance of industry.
25
The programme, which, among other
things, rested on the protection of private property, sound public finances, and limits
to government, was discussed with the party leaders but no agreement could be made.
The organization was shut down in 1953 and Niklas Stenlås concludes that it never
played any significant role in affecting public opinion as it was ‘too small and somewhat
outside the mainstream of Swedish business political activism’.
26
Instead, the trustees of Näringslivets Fond continued discussing ‘a positive program
from business, that in some respects could correspond to and counterbalance’the post-
war programme. The task of formulating the programme was given to the Bureau for
Economic Information, and its founder, Per Wenander, sought inspiration in liberal
economist Wilhelm Röpke’s writings.
27
Röpke later became President of the Mont
Pelerin Society.
28
Several drafts were made, but the ‘attempts cannot be regarded as directly
successful’, the Director of the Bureau, Tore Sellberg, stated five years later. For
Sellberg, who had been an anarchist in his youth, the basic principles of the pro-
gramme rested on an analysis inspired by the Austrian economic school, in which the
primary purpose of business was to satisfy consumption needs whilst preserving the
greatest possible freedom for the individual. He gave this a name of its own:
‘consumerism’(‘konsumentism’). This should be achieved through free price formation,
competition, free trade, private ownership, and so forth. The market economy could,
however, be complemented and corrected in areas such as defence, policing, and
health care.
29
In Sweden, there were others who also planned to write a programme for
business. In 1948, the Fund had financed the start of Studieförbundet Näringsliv och
Samhälle (Centre for Business and Policy Studies, SNS) at the request of a group of
young businessmen inspired by the Committee for Economic Development in the
United States, an organization that facilitated cooperation between businessmen and
scientists. While the already-existing Industrins Utredningsinstitut (Industrial Institute for
Economic and Social Research, IUI) focused on deeper investigations, SNS would be
more of debate forum. SAF and Industriförbundet had jointly founded IUI in 1939, but it
became a research institute in its own right and not a propaganda organ for business.
30
Objective research and dialogue rather than confrontation was the motto of SNS.
This was another approach to the one taken by Näringslivets Fond during the 1940s’
debate over the planned economy.
31
One reason behind the Fund’s willingness to
provide money was probably SNS’intention to come up with a programme for
business. At the first major SNS conference in Tylösand, one of the founders, Tore
Browaldh, stated:
It must be admitted that that the businessman’s task of defending free enterprise is
not too easy […] He does not know what to defend […] He lacks a positive
program. The socialist movement has had ideas that has enthused the masses. Ideas
can only be fought with ideas. A successful struggle for the free [enterprise] system
cannot be pursued without ideas that can be understood and embraced by the
business men, which then can be conveyed to the broad classes of society.
32
THE ALTERNATIVE 5
Although Browaldh came from a well-known banking family, he had actually worked
with leading Social Democrat Gunnar Myrdal during and after the war, first as an
assistant during Myrdal’s visits to the United States and then as adjunct secretary in the
government’s Committee for Economic Post-War Planning.
33
His approach to the business programme was significantly Keynesian. Business
should adhere to principles of full employment and a business cycle adjusted fiscal
policy. Business ought to accept income redistribution through the tax system, state
ownership in certain areas, and universal welfare policy.
34
Dealing with competition and wage setting
Since 1947, people involved in promoting business interests in Sweden had been
participating in international conferences with similar organizations. At one such
conference, held in Copenhagen for Nordic organizations in 1950, the represen-
tatives agreed on the need for an ‘Alternative’in all the participating countries
and, henceforth, the work should be coordinated among the organizations.
35
Its
aim was no less than a ‘liberal alternative to the planned and socialistic
politics’.
36
Representatives from Näringslivets Fond/Byrån för Ekonomisk Information continued to
discuss the programme with their Nordic counterparts. Christian Gandil from Denmark, a
member of the Mont Pelerin Society, represented Erhvervenes Oplysningråd.TrygvedeLange,
astaunchanti-socialistwithclosetiestotheConservative Party in Norway, represented
Libertas. Ekonomiska Informationsbyrån in Finland had different representatives.
37
At a conference in Helsinki in 1952, the Fund’sdirector,UnoMurray,statedthat
‘the information- and propaganda work in the different countries is best coordinated if
there is a common ground […] an approved program to follow’. It turned out that this
was quite difficult to achieve. Two of the main issues were competition and the role of
labour market organizations. Murray stated that ‘competition is really nothing good in
itself. We don’twanteveryone’s war against everyone’. Sellberg, on the other hand,
‘claimed an in all regards free competition –let it be everyone’s war against everyone’.
The Finnish host, Nils Svartström, summed up the discussion: ‘in essence we celebrate
free competition, but it’s ruined not only by the planned economy, but also by business
itself through an agreement system [avtalssystem] that goes too far’.Thesecondmajorissue
regarded wage formation. Murray meant they could not recommend regulated price
controls in this area and free competition in the rest. Sellberg wondered if ‘one could
maintain central wage negotiations and at the same time adhere to the free market
system?’, and he was supported by Gandil from Denmark. ‘This is a very unpleasant
dilemma we find ourselves in […] Some of those that shall approve our program as a
program for business are deeply involved in this issue’, Murray concluded.
38
The group met again in Oslo in June 1952 for further discussions. John Egeland,
director of the Norwegian Shipping Association and an important figure in the
Norwegian information work, wondered if they ought to replace the word ‘capitalism’
with Sellberg’s‘consumerism’. For his part, Egeland believed that the word ‘neoli-
beralism’was a good description.
39
6SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY
The Yxtaholm conference
In August 1952, top people from the Nordic peak business associations and industry
met at SAF’s conference venue, Yxtaholm, to discuss the Alternative. Trygve de
Lange’s draft stated that ‘business and the non-socialist front has been weak for many
years because it has not been able to produce a clear alternative in the area of economic
policies’. Specifically, he asked the conference for guidance on whether or not the state
should prohibit all agreements that hampered free competition and to what extent
price controls should be accepted on the labour market.
40
That these two issues were hard to resolve for the programme organizers should
not come as surprise. First, wage setting was an issue for the peak organizations and
the first central agreement in Sweden was reached between the Employers’Association
and the Trade Union Confederation in 1956.
41
Second, cartels were a common feature
of business life during this period, although a US-inspired debate on its downsides
picked up after the war.
42
Some 40% of the total domestic production in Sweden is
estimated to have been under cartel control in 1935. From 1946, all cartels, except
those that were international agreements, were registered (but not banned) by the
state. Peter Sandberg writes: ‘Generally speaking, the business interests were suspi-
cious of further legislation and believed that self-regulation was the best way to
increase competition’. The legislation was amended and tightened during the following
decades, but cartels were not banned until the 1990s.
43
Tore Browaldh, deputy director of SAF, was the first to speak up at the
conference. Considering the conflicting interests within business, was it possible to
unite behind a common programme, he wondered? Would this programme be
accepted by the masses? It had to be politically feasible, meaning that business had
to listen to the ‘demands for security, full employment and levelling of income’.
44
Anker Lau, a Danish parliamentarian and merchant, believed that it would be
difficult to draw up a common Nordic manifesto, considering the different structures
of trade and industry in the various countries. Nonetheless, the work ought to be
followed through, an opinion shared by most of the participants. The subsequent
discussion sprawled and, unfortunately for de Lange, the conference could not agree on
any specific issues or on a manifesto or programme at large. Instead, the smaller group
should continue working with support from a ‘contact man’from each country’s
business sector. The Swedes chose Tore Browaldh, the Finns Nils Svartström, and the
Norwegians Christian Erlandsen. All of these worked for their respective Employers’
Associations. The Danes choose Anker Lau.
45
Programme or manifesto?
Each country now proceeded with writing their own texts, which were then discussed
at inter-Nordic conferences, still with the idea of trying to get a common programme
in place. Parts of the work were outsourced to academics: the Finns had professor
Hugo E. Pipping make a draft and, in Sweden, professor Hugo Hegeland was given the
task.
46
By late 1952, the Swedes had come up with a chapter outline drafted by Curt-
Steffan Giesecke from SAF, who had now joined the working group.
47
The disposition
had swelled to 13 chapters, in which the last one should be the ‘programme of action’
[handlingsprogram]. Other chapters included an historical review, competition and
THE ALTERNATIVE 7
monopoly problems, the role of foreign trade, and currency markets, among others.
The chapter ‘Our Goals’had four points: freedom, progress, security (trygghet), and
income levelling.
48
Jan Wallander wrote the chapter on competition and monopoly, which was
natural as he had worked with the SNS report on limits to competition, published
in 1951.
49
The report had suggested (‘although we expressed ourselves carefully’)a
law against cartels. According to Wallander, the proposal was anathema to a large part
of the circle that financed SNS through Näringslivets Fond.
50
At a meeting in Helsinki in 1954, the inter-Nordic contact group worked out a five-
page ‘Basic View’(Grundsynen) of what the programme should look like. It stated that:
The economic freedom is a foundation for the cultural and political freedom. That
is why restrictions of it must be opposed regardless of whether they derive from
state ownership, public regulation or from private monopolies, cartels or trusts.
State ownership can in principle only be permitted when it comes to tasks that
cannot be fulfilled by private enterprise and when free competition is not
possible.
51
However, in a modern society, it was also the public’s concern to protect the citizens
from the consequences of illness, disability, unemployment, and old age. Those needs
were, however, ‘best met in a society with steady economic progress’.
The last conference
The last purely inter-Nordic conference was held in Norway in October 1956. By
then, the Norwegians had published their own manifesto. According to Uno Murray,
one of the reasons that the Swedes had been unable to come up with anything was the
major information campaign that claimed ‘all available resources’before the 1956
national elections. Murray was still in favour of continuing the work and stated that the
‘Swedish group has always been clear that the so called “alternative”should result in
determined recommendations’.
52
However, Gandil and Sellberg, who had been given
the task to finish the Nordic programme, wrote to the members of the contact group
to ask if a real wish for a manifesto existed and what the plan was once it was
written.
53
Giesecke replied that he had always been sceptical of any business manifesto,asit
demanded a high degree of precision, which was probably impossible to obtain.
Instead, he wanted a programme that laid down the basic view of business in economic
matters. ‘It is business and the businessmen’s main task to produce and distribute, not
to come with general statements and it is by showing how political measures affect
their conditions, that you get people to listen’.
54
The Norwegians wanted to continue
working on a Nordic manifesto, whilst the Danes now proceeded with a domestic
solution.
55
The work that followed in the Swedish group during 1957 did not emphasize
defending free enterprise as such but was more concerned with current economic
issues. In April, Murray sent out a memo to the group in which he suggested seven
reforms: limits to public spending, the restitution of the housing market, eliminations
of hindrance to savings, a functional credit and capital market, market-based industrial
8SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY
localization, dealing with external disruptions to the economy, and economic devel-
opment and international trade.
56
Browaldh also gave a speech on business ideology, which SNS published together
with some of the debate contributions, something which both Lewin and Ullenhag has
written about.
57
In opposition to arguments brought forward during the planned
economy resistance 10 years earlier, Browaldh argued that business needed to change
its views of both reality and the intentions of the Social Democrats. Lewin means that
the discussion was a symptom of ‘new forms for contact and collaboration between
state and business’that had emerged after 1948.
58
There were, however, people
within the business community that opposed Browaldh’s lack of ideology and his idea
that business needed to adapt to the social changes.
The task, Karl Erik Gillberg from The Merchants’Association argued, was to get
the public opinion to accept the ideas of business, rather than try to make these ideas
more acceptable. Gillberg also meant that economic liberalism already provided
business with an ideology. Harald Nordenson, who was on the board of Näringslivets
Fond from 1940 to 1963, and a member of parliament between 1938 and 1953 for the
Conservatives, believed that the ideological divide between individualism and collecti-
vism could not be overlooked. For Nordenson, it also seemed more logical that
businessmen should advance their views through the political parties rather than try
to develop an ideology of their own.
59
Bertil Kugelberg, SAF’s Managing Director,
thought it would be good idea if businessmen took a greater interest in politics, but
deemed it difficult for business to work out a detailed programme.
Both Kugelberg and Nordenson were also on a committee consisting of leading
business people and conservative politicians that organized a campaign to raise aware-
ness among the general public concerning the conditions for business prior to the 1956
election. Christer Ericsson has written about the campaign. He notices that, although
business could agree on central issues such as private ownership and low taxes, it was
more difficult to get behind a programme that could unite the different interests within
business as a whole.
60
An abrupt turn
The whole idea of a business manifesto or programme seemed to fade away, at least in
Sweden, until 1965, when Näringslivets Fond and SNS were invited to the first
‘International conference of organisations concerned with free enterprise and the
market economy’, to be held at Libertas conference venue, Elingaard, in Norway.
Organizers were Aims of Industry in London, Aktionsgemeinschaft Soziale Marktwirtschaft
in Heidelberg, International Freedom Academy (INFRA) in Vienna, and Norwegian
Libertas. The idea was to discuss different methods for promotion of free enterprise
and then release a manifesto to the press.
61
The manifesto stated that:
The full success of free enterprise depends on its acceptance throughout Europe
and the world: the growth of state control and ownership in one country can no
longer be disregarded in any other. […] The growth of individual freedom, the
development of industrialization in the western world and the present unprece-
dently high standard of living were achieved under free enterprise but today these
THE ALTERNATIVE 9
results are severely threatened by the doctrine and policies of State power and
intervention incited during the wars and furthered by the wave of nationalization
and central planning that has swept over many European countries since World
War II.
62
The organizers had hoped for the Fund to be part of the official programme, but the
invitation was turned down. Uno Murray motivated this by claiming that:
Within Näringslivets Fond we base our values on the need of a societal economy
that to a considerable extent [iväsentligmån] is founded on private business
and free competition on free markets. But things are considerably more
complicated than what could be concluded from the manifesto draft we
received. In a modern society it is difficult to draw a clear line for what
can be tolerated of state influence over the economy. From our perspective
we have always been sceptical of the thought of such manifests […]itisupto
the political parties to account for their values through public appeals.
Näringslivets Fond is neutral in party politics and acknowledges as its task on
such basis to promote a matter-of-fact treatment of concrete issues […]We
do not wish to participate in an action that could be misinterpreted as a
departure from these principals.
63
SNS also turned down the invitation without specifying why. Considering a longer
perspective, Murray’s answer does seem odd. Ten years earlier he and his organization
had been deeply involved in trying to put together a business manifesto, not unlike the
one now proposed. Twenty years earlier this was exactly what the Fund had been
fighting for. So, what laid behind Murray’s attitude?
Norwegian organizer Trygve de Lange had his own explanation. In a 1966 news-
letter from Libertas, he stated that:
In Sweden unfortunately, the business information work is totally shut down, and
has been for many years. […] One of the reasons is that many have found it wise
to calculate with the system and perhaps stretched themselves too far in the
cooperation with government and authorities […] And so the private enterprise
has become the weaker part.
64
Although this was an exaggeration, de Lange was right in the sense that cooperation
between business interests and the state had deepened in Sweden during the previous
two decades.
Also, in 1963, Tore Sellberg left the Bureau for Economic Information, which was
then shut down.
65
Sellberg had been the one who most clearly had been in favour of a
value-driven business manifesto in defence of free enterprise.
Lastly, there could also have been personal considerations that made Murray
sceptical of the invitation. In 1960, the Norwegian conservative party Høyre broke
with Libertas. Leading people in Høyre meant that the party’s independence was
threatened by Libertas’many political proposals, including alternative state budgets.
66
It is possible that the conservative-leaning Näringslivets Fond in the mid-1960s found de
Lange too controversial a figure.
10 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY
Swedish journalist Arvid Fredborg was also on the board of the International
Freedom Academy in Vienna. He did not have an entirely problem-free relationship
with the Fund, which had financed his conservative political magazine Obs! between
1945 and 1953. For its entire lifetime, Obs! had economic problems and the Fund had
to constantly pitch in more money.
67
It could be that Murray considered Fredborg an
unreliable character.
A final attempt by SNS
In the wake of radical Leftism in the late 1960s, there was actually yet another attempt
by SNS to formulate a programme for business that would show the ‘breadth,
humanism and social responsibility of business’. Members of the discussion group
consisted of Volvo’s Chairman Pehr G. Gyllenhammar and IKEA’s Ingvar Kamprad,
among others. They did not manage to come up with a programme. According to the
group’s secretary, Olle Wästberg, those involved showed a total lack of ability to
compromise. The group was gradually dissolved in the mid-1970s.
68
Discussion
Following the intense debate on nationalization and taxation in Sweden right after
the Second World War, business interests wanted to formulate an ideological pro-
gramme that would counteract the Labour Movement’s ideas of a more planned
economy. Because business organizations in the other Nordic countries had the same
ambition, the programme work evolved into an inter-Nordic project from around
1950. It was supposed to be an alternative to social democratic ideology while at the
same time supporting business PR activities and uniting businessmen. Despite serious
efforts, the programme was never realized and the last inter-Nordic conference on the
matter was held in 1956. There were several reasons behind the failure.
Cartels
The main issue that the programme-makers never managed to solve was how to view
cartels. At the end of the day, the programme had to be approved by the top people of
the business peak organizations. As employers, they concluded collective wage agree-
ments with their counter parties from the trade unions. In effect, this was nothing less
than a cartelization of the labour market and a price control for wages. As business
men, their companies were often involved in private cartels. For the authors of the
programme, this was challenging. How could they propose free markets when their
own organizations in practice participated in price regulation?
Niklas Olsen, who has written about Erhvervenes Oplysningråd and its founder
Christian Gandil, argues that the organization’s failure to get any real influence in
Danish politics was its inability to get non-socialist parties and all major representatives
of the trades and business to mobilize around free market liberalism. Instead, they
choose pragmatism over ideological conflict.
69
The same conclusion holds regarding
the Alternative. Major business interests in the Nordic countries simply had no real
wish to alter the seemingly quite well-functioning economic order that developed in
the 1950s and 1960s. When the group assigned with writing the Alternative sought
THE ALTERNATIVE 11
guidance from the top brass in the peak organizations, no clear advice was given.
Leading people within SAF, such as Bertil Kugelberg and Curt-Steffan Giesecke,
remained sceptical of the possibility to work out a detailed programme.
Furthermore, the group members had recurring problems with deciding on
whether they were writing a shorter type of manifesto, based on an ideological
approach to free enterprise, or if the end product should be more of a programme
with business views on current economic issues such as inflation.
Lowered threat level
Business interests perceived the threat of socialization after the war to be real enough
to spend considerable amounts of resources on campaigning for free enterprise and
ideological resistance. This threat, however, diminished during the 1950s and at least
for the first half of the 1960s. Industry was not nationalized and various new
institutions for discussions between business and the state and the Labour Movement
were activated, most notably at the prime minister’s estate, Harpsund, in Sweden.
Thus, the sense of urgency for a programme that fiercely defended free enterprise did
not seem as high in 1955 as it had in 1945. The cross-class alliance that Peter Swenson
describes grew firmer as the Labour Movement proved to be less radical than business
had feared after the war. But, as the debate on supplementary pensions in Sweden
showed, the ideological conflict was by no means gone.
By 1965, the director of Näringslivets Fond had become extremely sceptical of any
such programme or manifesto. He argued that it should be up to the political parties to
take the ideological debate, not private enterprise.
Also, the 1950s and 1960s were the heydays of the so-called Swedish Model. GDP
growth was at an average of 3% per year. Surely this must also have contributed to a
lower sense of urgency in defending free enterprise and instead created a need to focus
on how to come to grips with an economy with clear signs of overheating, such as fast
rises in wages and prices.
Hayek or Keynes?
Maiju Wuokko has, as one of many, noted that there was an ongoing struggle, a ‘war
of ideas’, as economist Friedrich Hayek put it, between proponents of free markets and
economic interventionism in the West during the post-war decades.
70
This paper has
stressed the diverging opinions on basic economic views among those involved in
writing the programme. At least initially, the main idea was to defend the notion of
free enterprise. The fear was that nationalization of industry, albeit only a small part to
start with, would eventually lead to totalitarianism, in line with the arguments
proposed by Hayek and others. Over time, and especially when Tore Browaldh
from SNS became involved, the project turned in a more Keynesian direction, arguing
for full employment, redistribution of production results, and proposing pragmatism
rather than ideological confrontation.
In his memoirs, Jan Wallander writes that business as a whole was too hetero-
geneous and had too many diverging interests to ever be able to unite behind a
programme. He also asks himself why the young non-socialist economists of the time
failed to come up with a business programme centred around a ‘market economic
12 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY
alternative’. Given their view on free competition, it should have been close at hand.
But during the 1950s and 1960s, Keynes was the ‘obvious starting-point for the
scientific discussion’. It was not until the foundation of Timbro in 1978 that the
‘time was ripe for a different view’and the ‘market economic alternative’could be
seriously debated.
71
Under the leadership of Sture Eskilsson from the Employers’Association, Timbro
became the new market-oriented think tank of Näringslivets Fond as SAF geared up to
fight the Labour Movement over the idea of wage earner funds in the late 1970s.
Eskilsson’s first job had been at the Bureau for Economic Information as one of ‘Tore’s
[Sellberg] boys’.
72
Although neoliberal-inspired PR businessmen, such as Trygve de
Lange, Christian Gandil, and Tore Sellberg, lost the battle over business ideology in
the 1950s, it is obvious that, in the long run, Keynes was dead.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Funding
This project was supported by a scholarship provided by the Stockholm School of
Economics.
Notes
1 Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti, Arbetarrörelsens efterkrigsprogram, 30. All
translations to Swedish are my own.
2 For Denmark, see Olsen, ‘Second-Hand Dealer’, 146. For Norway, see Sejersted,
Age of Social Democracy, 312–13. For Finland, see Wuokko, Business in the Battle of
Ideas. For a detailed debate on the extent of post-war economic planning in
Norway, see the debate between Arild Saether/Ib Eriksen and Olav Bjerkholt in
Econ Journal Watch 11(1,3).
3 This term comes from Olsen, ‘Second-Hand Dealer’, 139.
4 The Confederation was founded in 2001 when the Employers’Association and
Industry Association merged. This paper relies largely on archive material belong-
ing to Näringslivets Fond. By looking at the archive registers belonging to SAF and
Industriförbundet, it does not seem to have any more material related to the
Alternative. It could be, however, that more information can be found in other
Nordic archives and in the archives of individual business leaders. A future research
task could be to look at Tore Browaldh’s archive (deposited by Svenska
Handelsbanken at CfN) and Curt-Steffan Giesecke’s archive (F 51c in the SAF-
archive at CfN).
5 Larsson, Näringslivets historia, 435; Berg and Traxler, Handbook of Business Interest
Associations, 300.
6 Swenson, Capitalists against Markets.
7 Swenson, Capitalists against Markets, 296.
8 Swenson, Capitalists against Markets, preface, viii.
9Nordlund,Att leda storföretag,300;Linderborg,Socialdemokraterna skriver historia,245.
THE ALTERNATIVE 13
10 Stenlås, ‘Rise of Political Activism’, 278; Olsen, ‘Second-Hand Dealer’, 156.
11 Stenlås, Den inre kretsen,79–80, 87–8.
12 Styrelseprotokoll 1962-11-16, bil 7, A2:5, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
13 Lewin, Planhushållningsdebatten, 271–2.
14 Mirowski and Plehwe, Road from Mont Pèlerin, 10.
15 Carlson, ‘Heckscher’s Ideological Migration’, 94. Quote from Mont Pelerin Society
webpage: https://www.montpelerin.org (accessed 6 September 2017). An inter-
esting aspect here is that Näringslivets Fond changed its by-laws and name to Ratio in
2004 in order to become an independent institute conducting research on the
conditions of enterprise. In 2017, Ratio hosted the Mont Pelerin Society in
Stockholm. See Ratio website: http://ratio.se/mps-2017 (accessed
6 September 2017).
16 Nordlund, Att leda storföretag, 328–9.
17 Styrelseprotokoll 1947-01-10, Garantistiftelsen 1946, Näringslivets Fond, CfN;
Ullenhag I takt med tiden, 49.
18 Stenlås, Den inre kretsen, 349–50; Lewin, Planhushållningsdebatten, 340–1.
19 Lewin, Planhushållningsdebatten, 360–1.
20 Sejersted, Age of Social Democracy, 309–11.
21 Nycander, Makten över arbetsmarknaden, 126; Larsson, Näringslivets historia, 437–42;
Stråth, Mellan två fonder, 54–5.
22 Lundh, Spelets regler, 195–207; Nycander, Makten över arbetsmarknaden, 87, 139;
Ruin, I välfärdsstatens tjänst, 264–77; Östberg, I takt med tiden, 118–19.
23 Sejersted, Age of Social Democracy, 222.
24 Ericsson, Kapitalets politik,96–7.
25 Söderpalm, Direktörsklubben, 16, 31, 36–7.
26 Stenlås, ‘Rise of Political Activism’, 274.
27 Protokoll 1945-03-13, Protokoll Huvudmännen 1945–1950, Näringslivets Fond
(Timbros deposition), CfN. See also bilaga 2.
28 Mirowski and Plehwe, Road from Mont Pèlerin, 19.
29 P.M Ang. utformningen av ett näringspolitiskt program, B1:2, Näringslivets Fond,
CfN; Eskilsson a, Från folkhem, 36.
30 Ullenhag, I takt med tiden, 22; Carlsson and Lundahl, Ett forskningsinstitut, 195.
31 Ullenhag, I takt med tiden,25–8.
32 Browaldh, Gesällvandring,75–6.
33 Ullenhag, I takt med tiden, 17.
34 Noteringar för diskussion kring SNS’näringspolitiska program, Kap 1, F2:1,
Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
35 P.M Ang. utformningen av ett näringspolitiskt program, B1:2, Näringslivets Fond,
CfN.
36 P.m angående arbetet på ett liberalt alternativ […], F2:2, Näringslivets Fond,
CfN.
37 Olsen, ‘Second-Hand Dealer’, 149, 151; Norsk Biografisk Leksikon, ‘Trygve de
Lange’(by Bonde, Arne), https://nbl.snl.no/Trygve_De_Lange (accessed
5 February 2018).
38 Koncentrerat referat av förhandlingarna vid det Nordiska Kontaktmannamötet i
Helsingfors den 11 och 12 februari 1952, F2:2 Alternativet 1950-1953 + u-å,
Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
14 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY
39 Referat fra kontaktmannsmotet på Elingaard 13, 14 och 15, juni 1952, Svenska
programarbetet, F1:1 Utredningar, Näringslivets Fond, CfN; Olsen, ‘Second-Hand
Dealer’, 156. Note that Olsen misspells Egeland as ‘Englund’.
40 P.m angående arbetet på ett liberalt alternativ […], F2:2, Näringslivets Fond,
CfN.
41 De Geer, Arbetsgivarna, 110.
42 Wallander, Livet som det blev, 238.
43 Sandberg, ‘Cartel Registration in Sweden’, 214.
44 Anteckningar vid konferensen i Yxtaholm den 22 och 23 augusti 1952, F2:2,
Näringslivets Fond, CfN. For more information on Browaldh, see
Nationalencyklopedin, Tore Browaldh, https://www.ne.se/uppslagsverk/encyklo
pedi/lång/tore-browaldh (accessed 14 June 2018).
45 Representanter från de nordiska länderna för samarbete i fråga om ett ‘näringslivets
program’, Svenska programarbetet, F1:1, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
46 Anteckningar. Från sammanträde i Stockholm den 14 december 1953 …,
‘Alternativet’Promemorior enligt svenska dispositionen, F2:3, Näringslivets
Fond, CfN; P.M. angående konferensen på Elingaard i oktober 1956, F2:4,
Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
47 Giesecke was deputy director of SAF from 1954 and director from 1966. Project
Runeberg, Vem är det: svensk Biografisk handbok 1969,http://runeberg.org/vemar
det/1969/0327.html (accessed 25 September 2017).
48 Svenska Gruppen Disposition till ett näringslivets program, Alternativet:
Promemorior enligt svenska dispositionen, F2:3 Alternativet 1952-1954,
Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
49 Ullenhag, I takt med tiden, 60; F1:1 Utredningar, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
Wallander was managing director of IUI (today named IFN) in 1953–1961. see
Institutet för Näringslivsforskning, Historik, https://www.ifn.se/om_ifn/his
torik/tidslinje (accessed 14 June 2018).
50 Wallander, Livet som det blev, 239.
51 GRUNDSYNEN, Manifest Tore Sellberg, B1:1, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
52 P.M. angående konferensen på Elingaard i oktober 1956, F2:4, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
See also Ericsson, Kapitalets politik,101–4, for a description of the 1956 campaign.
53 Brev från Tore Sellberg och Christian Gandil januari 1957, Alternativet
Manifestfrågan, F2:5, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
54 Curt-Steffan Giesecke brev till Tore Sellberg 23 januari 1957, Alternativet
Manifestfrågan, F2:5, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
55 Trygve de Lange brev till Tore Sellberg 25 januari 1957 and Anker Lau brev till Christian
Gandil 30 januari 1957, Alternativet Manifestfrågan, F2:5, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
56 Alternativet - handlingsprogram, F2:1, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
57 Herz, Ideologi för näringslivet; Ullenhag, I takt med tiden,73–7; Lewin,
Planhushållningsdebatten, 377–83.
58 Lewin, Planhushållningsdebatten, 383.
59 Herz, Ideologi för näringslivet, 44, 60, 67. On Nordenson’scareer, see
Nationalencyklopedin, Harald Nordenson, http://www.ne.se/uppslagsverk/encyk
lopedi/lång/harald-nordenson (accessed 22 September 2017). For more on
Nordenson’s view on ideology, see Ericsson, Kapitalets politik,62–3.
60 Ericsson, Kapitalets politik, 101–3.
THE ALTERNATIVE 15
61 Invitation, F3:5, Näringslivets Fond, CfN. Aims of Industry was founded in 1942
‘to campaign for free enterprise’. Libertas was founded in 1947 ‘with the objective
of working for free enterprise’. INFRA worked for ‘the promotion of free
enterprise activities’(see letterhead in box F3:5). Aktionsgemeinschaft Soziale
Marktwirtschaft was founded in 1953 to promote a social market economy (see
the organization’swebpage:http://www.asm-ev.de/UeU_Historie.html;
accessed 12 December 2017).
62 Manifesto, F3:5, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
63 Konferens på Elingaard 1965, F3:5, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
64 Til samtlige medlemmer og interesserte, F3:5, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
65 Styrelseprotokoll 1963-02-20, bil 1, A2:5, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
66 Furre, Norsk historie 800-2000, 239.
67 Styrelseprotokoll 1952-10-28, A2:3, Näringslivets Fond, CfN.
68 Ullenhag, I takt med tiden,96–8.
69 Olsen, ‘Second-Hand Dealer’, 161.
70 Wuokko, ‘Battle of Ideas’,1.
71 Wallander, Livet som det blev, 240, 331.
72 Eskilsson, Från folkhem, 33.
ORCID
Rikard Westerberg http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6480-6623
References
Archival resources
Centrum för Näringslivshistoria (CfN):
Näringslivets Fonds arkiv
A2:3 Protokoll styrelsen
A2:5 Protokoll styrelsen
B1:1 Koncept och PM 1940-tal - 1969
B1:2 Koncept och PM spridda år.
F1:1 Utredningar
F2:1 Alternativet 1948-1957
F2:2 Utredningar
F2:3 Alternativet 1952-1954
F2:4 Alternativet 1953-1957 + u.å
F2:5 Alternativet 1955-1957 + u.å
F3:3 Konferenser 1956-1965
Protokoll Huvudmännen 1945–1950 (Timbros deposition)
Garantistiftelsen 1946, Styrelseprotokoll
Digitalized resources
Aktionsgemeinschaft Soziale Marktwirtschaft www.asm-ev.de
Institutet för Näringslivsforskning www.ifn.se
Nationalencyklopedin www.ne.se
16 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY
Norsk Biografisk Leksikon nbl.snl.no
Projekt Runeberg runeberg.org
Ratio www.ratio.se
Mont Pelerin Society www.montpelerin.org
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THE ALTERNATIVE 17
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Rikard Westerberg is a Ph.D. student at the Institute for Economic and Business
History Research (EHFF) at the Stockholm School of Economics. His Ph.D. project
concerns Swedish business’influence on politics and public opinion, 1945–1985.
Address: Institute for Economic and Business History Research (EHFF), Stockholm
School of Economics, P.O Box 6501, SE-11383 Stockholm, Sweden. [email: rikard.wester-
berg@phdstudent.hhs.se]
18 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY
