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In-Depth Information
troglycerin. Dynamite helped make war more deadly, but Nobel is now best remembered
for bequeathing his fortune to prizes on behalf of humanitarian endeavors.
In the 1930s, Sweden, like the rest of the world, ground to an economic halt. Unem-
ployment and poverty devastated the country. In many countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin
America, frightened and angry workers demanded a socialist-communist revolution to rout
a failed capitalist system. In still other countries, the way was opened for a dictator to take
control of the economy and, in so doing, to crush freedom and dissent. As was said of
Italy's Mussolini, despite his methods, he made the trains run on time. And Nazi Germany
tackled its unemployment by building its autobahns (the equivalent of America's interstate
highways) and armaments.
Sweden's response to the Great Depression was “Capitalism with a Human Face.”
In a phrase made memorable by an American writer, Marquis Childs, Sweden created a
“Middle Way” between the extremes of political left and right. [139] Private property re-
mained private. Keyensian economic policy was put into play. The government would
serve as emergency employer. Public funds would be used to stimulate demand. The major
actors in the industrial system—labor unions, owners and managers, political officials, and
banks and bankers—entered into agreements that guaranteed employment and contained
no-strike clauses so that factory managers could keep production schedules, and most im-
portant of all, so that the welfare state would be vastly expanded. An important compon-
ent of the Middle Way was government's responsibility for industrial well-being. When
Swedish shipyards could no longer compete with cheaper labor abroad, shipyards were shut
down, and their workers were given government grants for training and education to enable
them to enter other employment.
The Middle Way has served Sweden fairly well for over seventy-five years. But like
the second generation of its human creators, it, too, shows signs of aging. Sweden operates
under all-too-common rules of human behavior. Benefits once given are jealously guarded
and held to be sacrosanct. An aging workforce may be insufficient to support the oncom-
ing generation's welfare expectations. Concern for the environment precludes clear-cutting
forests or wholesale construction of atomic energy plants. Of course, government needs
more money, but few are willing to see their taxes raised. So, the Swedes themselves now
talk of finding a new, twenty-first century Middle Way. [140]
WHO ARE THE FINNS?
Bordered by Sweden and Russia, Finns consider themselves to be Scandinavians, despite
a centuries-long connection to Russia. Finland's two official languages are Finnish and
Swedish. Out of a population of over 5.4 million, about 5 percent of Finns speak Swedish
as a family language (down from 7 percent thirty years ago). The Finnish language is as-
signed by linguists to a very small language family, Ural-Altaic (or variously to Finno-
 
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