New Homes for All

A number of commissions were at work in the 1920s and 1930s worrying about such things as unemployment...the problem of the 1920s.

Immediately after the Kaiser War the Social Democrats really had no other idea than to get into power. When they got there they had a problem. What were they to use their power for? The class struggle had been their ideology but they had now rejected it in favour of parliamentarianism.

By the mid-1920s they had two ideas.

Firstly they would work to make the cake bigger... provided they got their fair share of the cake. This was quite a revolutionary posture. In America there has never been a question about who owns the rewards of increased productivity.

Secondly they would use their share of the cake to make things better. The problem for the think tanks was to translate that into policy language. The key breakthrough was deciding to make things better for the worst off.

With hindsight this may all sound rather trivial. But economic development must have a purpose. Much of the trouble in the world can be directly traced to pursuit of profit for profit's sake.

Corporations have no purpose other than to become bigger and ever more powerful. Nations pursue growth for growth's sake...and because it is the only way to balance the books in a debt-usury system that fails to account for usury.

By 1928 the key decisions had been made.

Making the poor better off meant jobs, housing, political participation and a measurable number of very specific goals. Per Albin Hansson's speech to the Swedish Parliament in 1928 was as momentous in its time as a speech by a Swedish Prime Minister today would be were he to stand up in parliament and announce that Sweden was applying to become a state of the union...the American united states that is.

His theme was a home for every Swede. But not just any home. A good home, well-made and of the very highest quality.

'...i det goda hemmet råder likhet, omtanke, samarbete, hjälpsamhet...'
                                                                     Per Albin Hansson (1928)

Social Democracy finally had its big project after almost a decade of searching.

The architect was to be Gustav Möller although Gunnar and Alva Myrdal's 1934 book 'Kris i Befolkningsfrågor' was to be of crucial importance...not because the social democrats took much notice of their recommendations, but because it allowed the party to colonise social territory that had previously been the exclusive reserve of the right in Swedish politics.