Conditions in Sweden

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19663, 24 August 1935, Page 13 (Supplement)

Conditions in Sweden

WHEN TALK VEERS to .planned economy and the regulation of industry by codes and rules, as it does at the present time when the shadow of the Supreme Court’s decision against NRA rests on 'the American scene, one is likely to hear mention of the Scandinavian countries. There seems to ho a general impression that these nations have achieved most of their economic gains by legislative action. Sweden, which to the discerning has begun to stand forth as an example in democracy, has come in for particular comment. But the impression that Sweden is a country where a democratic form of government has worked out a satisfactory method of economic control is as erroneous as it is widespread. Bather than presenting a model system of governmental control of industry, Sweden is almost unique in that it is a country where such control is at a minimum. True, Industry in Sweden is Rigidly Governed. But to those who think of such control only in terms of legislative action, Sweden presents an almost baffling picture. There is not on the statute books of Sweden a single antitrust law. The Swedes have never by act of legislation drawn up any measure to restrict 'trusts, to curb combines or monopolies. The state in Sweden has gone in for the ownership of electric power, railroads, communications and other purely public utility concerns. But even t);is brand of ownership is not restrictive. That state docs not monopolise. The state some times competes with private enterprise. But In what may be termed “use" industries there is an utter lack of legislative interference. Yet not so many years ago production and distribution in Sweden were absolutely controlled by trusts. The prices of margarine, of overshoes, of lamp bulbs, even of such a necessity as Hour, were so fixed. Unlit the year 1 ‘AOS this Monopolisation Was Unchallenged. Government interference! was not invoked because the Swedes were gaining a conception of democracy as economic as well as political. They perceived that any system of governmental control tended also to restrict trade, to tlx prices and therefore hit the consumer. They conceived the idea that practices and prices could be properly governed onlv by economic democratic action. From England the Swedes had imported llm ideal of consumer cmitnd of industry through voluntary co-operative action, they licuan by building co-operative retail organisations through which the consumer wielded

Land of Economic Democracy.

(By Bertram B. Fowler In Christian Selene e Monitor).

an economic vote. These consumer cooperative societies were governed by voting members. When there were enough retail societies 'there was born tile wholesale cooperative, Ivooperativa Forbundet, or IC. F. as it is familiarly known. K. F. became the weapon, of the organised consumers. Faced by the threat of boycott on the part of the big producers who frowned upon co-operatives, iK. F. went to war with the trusts. In 1908 it started with the puny capital of 1500 dollars. Before it was llnished there was a co-operative margarine factory and 'the Trust Was Broken. The price of margarine came down to an economic level. But, more important, the consumers had proved 'their strength and solidarity. Since the war K. F. has acted as an agency for control of industry. It broke the overshoes trust and brought the price of galoshes from 8.50 to 3.50 kroner a pair. It built its own lamp bulb factory and brought the price of bulbs from 37 cents to 90 cents. It went into the manufacture of store equipment and broke another trust. It built Us own Hour mills lo supply its own bakeries with flour and broke live grip of the flour trust. To-day the Swedish co-operatives do about 40 per cent, of the retail trade of the country and absolutely regulate prices and conditions of trade. The movement Js linked closely to a sturdy trade union movement It dovetails with the governmental control of utilities, filling in the full picture of Swedish economy. The co-operatives have not run private enterprises out of business. But they have set up a system of consumer control that is absolute and which is yet encumbered with no dead weight of involved rules. it is this system of economic democracy that, was brought into Denmark to lift that country from a slate that bordered on economic serfdom to the bead of the list of prosperous countries and gave the Danish farmer the distinction of being the best in the world, it is remaking the economic fabric of Finland. It is Sweeping Across Great Britain. To-day 7,000.001) families in England and Scotland are members of the consumers’ rooperat h es. In none of these countries lias there been any drastic move toward legislative control of economic affairs. In this light the Supreme r.oiirl decision on NBA lakes on a new rneotirauiog aspect. We may neat eonlrol of industry, Iml Dial control, Sweden tells us, can be truly democratic.