Varieties
of Capitalist Interests and Illusions of Labor Power:
Employers in the Making of the Swedish and American Welfare States
Peter
Swenson
Abstract
Despite Sweden's reputation as a welfare state vanguard,
and the United States as a laggard, major innovations and expansions
in the Social Democratic welfare state had to wait until the 1940s
and 1950s, long after the "big bang" of America's New
Deal took place. In fact, Social Democratic reforms of the 1930s
were rather unimpressive compared to what took place in the United
States during that decade. This paper argues that historical puzzles
about the timing and shaping of the welfare state in the two countries
can be accounted for by factors other than the variable and differential
"power of labor" in the reform process. Instead, it emphasizes
cross-class alliances behind reforms that satisfy capitalists' interests
in market regulation. Capitalists are in other words satisfied rather
than overpowered in the reform process. The argument points to variations
and change over time in employer interests in reform, deriving from
national differences in institutionalized strategies for governing
labor markets and consequently different vulnerabilities to macroeconomic
disturbances. The theory builds on efficiency wage theory from labor
economics; the historical analysis draws on archival and other evidence
from the two countries.
Peter Swenson, Department
of Political Science, Northwestern University
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