Library:Riding the Wave

Riding the Wave: Sweden's Integration into the Imperialist World System
Author	Torkil Lauesen
Publisher	Kersplebedeb Publishing
First published	2021
Type	Book
Source	https://annas-archive.li/md5/0e7e0ae20903230aa84c142a06344d2b
PDF	https://annas-archive.li/md5/827b991d49a65d4e2679d4eaf7400b17
Audiobook

Introduction

This book is about Sweden’s integration and role within global capitalism. It covers the period from 16th-century colonialism to the present day of transnational production chains. Sweden’s economic and political system cannot be understood without this long and global perspective. The development of global capitalism has significantly influenced the national contradictions that have come to define capitalism’s special “Swedish model.”

Globalization is not a new phenomenon. Capitalism has always been a world system. The breakthrough of industrial capitalism was closely linked to the Portuguese and Spanish looting of gold and silver from Latin America in the 16th century and Dutch, English, and French colonialism in the 17th and 18th centuries. The creation of the world system was at the same time a polarization of the world between a Northwest European core and the rest of the world, a colonial periphery. This process also shaped the birth and development of capitalism in Sweden. The inter-imperialist contradictions of the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, between England, France, the USA, and Germany, were of great importance to the economic and political development of Sweden. Up until the Second World War, Sweden was economically and politically tied to Germany. The German defeat in the Second World War, however, changed and broadened Sweden’s pattern of alliances in the direction of the USA and the rest of Europe. Simultaneous with the further development of the social democratic welfare state—the “people’s home” (folkhem)—Sweden expanded its global economic and political influence in the 1950s and 60s. In the mid-1970s, the neoliberal counteroffensive hit Sweden’s model welfare state hard, putting an end to 44 years of continuous social democratic rule. Outsourcing of industry, global finance, and migration flows have changed Swedish society. One cannot understand Sweden without an analysis of how national contradictions interact with capitalism’s principal global contradictions. This may sound familiar, obvious, and trivial. However, most studies of Sweden’s economy and politics start from a national perspective, with the global perspective merely presented as background information.

In this book, I will use examples from history, from early colonialism to the present day, to trace the development of “the Swedish model.” The “folkhem” is, according to the Swedish self-perception, a special progressive form of capitalism with social features. “Capitalism with a human face.” The Scandinavian capitalist welfare states are often regarded as semi-socialist societies, by both left-wing politicians in the United States—like Bernie Sanders—as well as politicians in many Third World countries. For the latter, the Scandinavian countries’ progressive image is bolstered by the fact that they were not significant colonial powers and, even moreso, because Sweden supported many Third World liberation struggles in the 1970s. Even on the more radical left, I have come across the view that the social democratic welfare state is a step towards socialism and that, “we can go with the Social Democrats halfway to our goal.” Such views are manifestations of a lack of a global perspective. The global perspective is not only important for analyzing the world; it is equally important for strategies to change the world. In order to develop effective anti-capitalist strategies, it is necessary to start from the global contradictions. First of all, because they have a decisive influence on the outcome of national contradictions, but even moreso because we, as socialists, must be internationalists, not only in words but also in deeds. We are not struggling for the specific benefit of the citizens of privileged nations like Sweden, but for the proletariat regardless of national or ethnic background. Finally, the global perspective is necessary because capitalism can only be defeated through a coordinated struggle. Internationalism is necessary if we want another, more equal and democratic, world order.

In what follows, I will describe how Sweden became part of the imperialist core—how it tried to be a significant European colonial power but was outmaneuvered by the great colonial powers. Instead, Sweden had to ride on the coattails of colonialism, especially that of Germany and Belgium. I describe the interaction between the breakthrough of industrial capitalism, the rise of social democracy, and the development of the Swedish welfare state, in the context of an increasingly globalized capitalism. Finally, I describe how neoliberalism has brought about economic change and altered the pattern of politics in Sweden, and provide an overview of the current economic and political situation.

Although the Scandinavian countries may seem more progressive than the leading imperialist powers, we will see that when you scratch the surface they are no different in their practice or ideology. For working-class people, they are certainly more comfortable than most countries, whether in the Global North or South—their exploits, however, are just as unscrupulous as those of the “hard-core” imperialist powers. While I focus on Sweden in the following pages, it is not because Norway or Denmark, my home country, are better or worse. It is because Sweden is the most important in economic terms; “the Swedish model” is the ideal type of capitalist welfare state and social democracy there is most advanced.

Louis Proyect’s 2015–2016 series about Sweden in his blog “The Unrepentant Marxist” served as an inspiration to write this book, as did many other sources. I attempt to take this material and show how it fits within an overarching process of imperialist polarization and shifting global contradictions. Of course, these conclusions are mine alone. I would like to thank everyone who has read drafts of this book and provided me with useful comments. In addition, I would like to thank Karl Kersplebedeb for assuming the task of editing the book, both in terms of language and content.

SWEDEN: NATIONAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Early colonialism and the slave trade

The rise of capitalism in Europe and colonialism are two inseparable phenomena. It was the conquest of the Americas and the looting of Africa and Asia that boosted the development of capitalism in Europe. The Spanish colonies in Latin America provided the silver and gold that Europe needed so desperately for its growing trade. The European kings, nobility, and Church were insatiable in their lust for luxury; following in their footsteps, the growing bourgeoisie and members of the state apparatus also became consumers of more and new kinds of goods. Gold and silver coins were the necessary medium for the growing trade. The limited amount of these two metals hampered the circulation of goods. That is why the thirst for gold and silver from the “New World” was so great. Precious metals were looted—or mined by slave labor—in Mexico and Peru and were then transported in huge quantities, mainly to Spain. From there, they spread throughout Europe and quenched the budding capitalism’s thirst for a means of exchange.^[1] Between 1500 and 1800, approximately 100 million kg of silver were transported from South America to Europe.^[2] The silver coins developed European manufacturing and paid for the import of goods from Asia—at the time, Europe had nothing of interest to Asia except gold and silver.

1. “The discovery of America was due to the thirst for gold which had previously driven the Portuguese to Africa, because the enormously extended European industry of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the trade corresponding to it demanded more means of exchange than Germany, the great silver country from 1450 to 1550, could provide. The conquest of India by the Portuguese, Dutch and English between 1500 and 1800 had imports from India as its object—nobody dreamt of exporting anything there. And yet what a colossal reaction these discoveries and conquests, solely conditioned by the interests of trade, had upon industry: they first created the need for exports to these countries and developed large-scale industry.” Frederick Engels, “Letter to Schmidt, C. London, October 27, 1890.” In Marx and Engels Correspondence (Moscow: International Publishers, 1968).

2. Bill Warren, “Myths of Underdevelopment: Imperialism and Capitalist Industrialization,” New Left Review 81 (September–October, 1973): 41.

Slavery was expanded and systematized in the colonies in South America and the Caribbean. The Spaniards and Portuguese initially used Latin America’s Indigenous population as slaves in the mines and plantations. The Incan, Aztec, and Mayan peoples had developed societies that organized collective irrigation, production, and the distribution of food. The violent colonization broke down the structures of these Indigenous societies and famine ensued. In addition, Europeans brought epidemic diseases, such as smallpox, which killed millions of people. The colonization process brought the population to the brink of extinction in parts of South America, falling from an estimated 50 million in 1492 to 4 million in the late 1600s.^[3] Because of a lack of labor, the Spaniards and Portuguese began a slave hunt in Africa, transporting their prey to their colonies in America. This business was so lucrative that England, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark soon got involved. Approximately 15 million captive Africans were thus transported across the Atlantic between 1700 and 1850.

Sweden attempted to become a colonial power but was not very successful. Around 1650, Sweden established a number of forts in present-day Ghana on the West Coast of Africa, intending them to be a staging area for looting, slave-hunting, and trade. The Swedish merchants did not manage to undertake more than fifty slave transports, however, before the forts were conquered by Denmark in 1663. Sweden also established a trading colony on the southern tip of South Africa in 1649, but it was conquered by the Netherlands in 1663. In 1784, King Gustav III purchased the Caribbean island of Saint-Barthélemy from France, but he was cheated: the island was small, had no drinking water, poor quality soil, and few inhabitants—and so could not be used to produce the sought after products: sugar and tobacco. It did serve as a free port until the 1870s, however, generating a modest revenue. Subsequently, the island became less important and was sold back to France in 1878. Sweden also tried to establish colonies in India, but England and France prevented this.

As a curiosum, I will mention that Sweden attempted, under King Karl XII (1682–1718), to establish a colony on Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The idea was that it should serve as a trade post and a pit stop for ships from the Swedish East Asian Company, on the important trade route between Europe and China. Madagascar was, at the time, an important base for pirates, mainly of Indian origin. In 1718, the pirates offered Karl XII the island of Sainte Marie near the coast and an area on the mainland in exchange for being protected by Sweden and “legalized” as Swedish citizens.

The pirates with their twenty-five ships and their fortune were to have the right to obtain land and settle in Sweden. Karl XII accepted the offer and a contract was drawn up; how- ever, the king died before he could sign it. His daughter and successor, Queen Ulrike Eleonora, equipped an expedition in 1721 to realize the plan, but a lack of funds left the ships stranded in Cadiz in Spain, and the project came apart.^[4]

In terms of acquiring colonies, Denmark was more successful than Sweden. It established 30 forts and trade posts along the West African coast. Between 1626 and 1825, Danish vessels carried approximately 100,000 captive Africans from West Africa to the Caribbean. Some of the slaves were sold in the Danish colonies in the Caribbean—St. Thomas (1672), St. John (1718), and St. Croix (1733)—where they mainly produced sugar and tobacco. The Danish East India Company also established trade posts in Tamil Nadu (Sri Lanka), in the Nicobar Islands, and in India in Tranquebar (1620) and Serampore (1755). In the North Atlantic, Greenland was recolonized by Denmark in 1721, joining Iceland and the Faroe Islands as part of the Danish kingdom. Denmark sold its pos- sessions in India to England in the mid-1800s, and the Danish West Indies—now called the Virgin Islands—to the United States for 25 million dollars in 1917. As Lenin commented:

'Who says that in our day there is no trade in human beings? There is quite a brisk trade. Denmark is selling to America for so many millions (not yet agreed upon) three islands, all populated, of course.'^[5]

Sweden did not manage to become a major slave trader, and yet the chains and bars on the Danish ships were made of Swedish iron. Sweden was the leading European iron exporter in the 17th century. Iron was involved in the colonial triangular trade between Africa, America, and Europe in several ways. It was used as a trading currency to buy slaves in Africa, for the production of chains and bars to keep the slaves locked up, and for tools for farming in the colonies. Denmark—and also England and Germany—bought large quantities of Swedish iron for these purposes.^[6] Besides iron, Sweden exported timber and salted herring to feed the slaves who labored on the Caribbean plantations, and imported sugar, tobacco, and cotton.^[7]

One possible reason for the lack of tenacity in Swedish attempts to acquire overseas colonies may be that there were prospects closer to home. In 1634, Peder Olofsson found a smooth and shiny black stone at Nasafjäll in the Arjeplog mountain region, in the north near the border with Norway. Upon closer examination, the stone was found to contain silver and lead. A “silver rush” broke out. Senator Karl Bonde expressed hopes that the discovery might solve Sweden’s economic troubles. “With God’s help, this will become the Swedish est Indies.” Swedish Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna added: “In Norrland we have an ‘India’ within our borders, if only we realize we should be taking advantage of it.”^[8] The northern part of today’s Sweden was at the time a very unpromising terrain, inhabited only by Sami and their herds of reindeer. National borders in the Scandinavian far north were not precisely established before 1700 and the Sami were to some extent an independent nation; therefore, the silver mining project was in fact a colonial venture.

The Sami were forcibly recruited to transport the silver ore to the south. However, it turned out that the ore was not as rich in silver as hoped, and production was abandoned after a few years. Still, the venture was the first industrial project in the region and as such signaled the beginning of the colonization of Sami territory, with the construction of roads and harbors to be used to service future iron and copper mines. At that point, the Sami were again used as cheap labor for the transport of ore to the harbors, from where it would be shipped further south in Sweden.

Sweden also colonized areas in the Baltic region in the 17th century. The country developed a strong militarized state machinery based on the landed aristocracy, which needed new territories to supplement its limited income from the lean farmlands in Sweden, which could barely sustain the peasantry.^[9] Finland was a Swedish province until 1808, when Russia conquered it during the Napoleonic Wars. Over the centuries, many Finns immigrated to Sweden, where they served as cheap labor, especially in the forestry and mining industries.