The Swedish Debate on Wage Earners

The Swedish Debate on Wage Earners

This paper argues that one of the reasons why Swedish social democrats were split in the debate on wage earners' funds (1975-83) can be traced to the fundamental ideological divergence among them, and that this reflects the whole history of ideological development of Swedish social democratic movement. There were three groups among social democrats around the funds issue: supporters of the proposal of wage earners' funds, supporters of the proposal of centralized citizens' funds and supporters of the proposal of decentralized pluralistic citizens' funds. The first group was an offspring of Ernst Wigforss' guild socialism, while the other groups were offsprings of functional socialism, divided into a left and a right version. At the crux of the debate among them, the crucial questions were placed: What kind of people should social democratic movement represent? And what kind of society should social democratic movement strive for?