How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the "One
Percent" 

by: George Lakey,
Waging Nonviolence | Op-Ed

Monday 30 January 2012 

http://www.truth-out.org/how-swedes-and-norwegians-broke-power-one-percent/1327942221

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, 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 Adalen 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.

As the world rises up against economic injustice,
Truthout brings you the latest news and analysis, free
of corporate influence. Help support this work with a
tax-deductible donation today.

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.

___________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]

Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3

Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq

Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe

Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive

Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate