In 1960, Eisenhower, speaking at a Republican Party function, had this to say about socialism and suicide rates:
"This country has a tremendous record for socialistic operation, following a socialistic philosophy, and the record shows that their rate of suicide has gone up almost unbelievably and I think they were almost the lowest nation in the world for that. Now, they have more than twice our rate. Drunkenness has gone up. Lack of ambition is discernible on all sides. Therefore, with that kind of example, let's always remember Lincoln's admonition. Let's do in the federal Government only those things that people themselves cannot do at all, or cannot so well do in their individual capacities[1]."
Naturally, the Nordic countries took offense at this remark. This statement launched an enduring myth, quite false, about the effects of socialism. It also helped contribute to misunderstanding over what socialism is that persists to this day, as the recent presidential election in the US clearly showed.
Sweden will be the focus of this article for various reasons: it is the “prime” example of socialism brought up in discussions on the topic, it took particular offense to Eisenhower’s comment, and the blogger has a special affinity for the country. Sweden is by any measure not a socialist country. However, it has, since the early 1900s, been grappling with the issues of the welfare state. How and when did Sweden build this state, and what can it tell the world today?
First, to eliminate some basic misconceptions. Socialism is essentially the state-owned or collective control over the means of production and the creation of an egalitarian society. This differs from communism in that communism envisions a state-less, class-less society. Many countries today are partly socialist—even the US if one considers employee owned stocks as partial ownership over the means of production[2]—commonly nationalizing, or giving the state control over, industries important to the economic well-being of the country. For all the claims about socialist Sweden, it does not have a history of nationalizing industries (except for a period in the 1970s under a conservative party’s leadership) comparable to other countries that are decidedly more socialist. However, Sweden, as of 2007, is the world’s third most income-equal society in the world, and its policies are aimed at creating an egalitarian society. Sweden, then, is perhaps a prime example of the welfare state—a state that works to protect and care for its people.
How did Sweden become a welfare state? This process was begun in 1889 with the birth of the Social Democratic Party (modeled on the Danish party, itself a model of the German). In 1920 the SDP became the party in power for a brief time, and from 1932 until 1976 the party would enjoy almost uninterrupted control of government[3]. With a political alliance with the Farmer’s party, the SDP was able to create and carry out an agenda an ambitious agenda of social reform and societal reconstruction.
Social reform touched on nearly every aspect of life—health, education, labor, religion, opportunity—and the effects are nothing less than dramatic. While the earliest reforms were passed in the 1920s, it was not until after World War II that the reforms in society were affected.
Health insurance was nationalized, and with it came several advances. Infant mortality rates dropped to the lowest in the world, lifespan was greatest. Sweden provided not only more beds than the Soviet Union and the US per ten-thousand people, but the care was excellent[4].
Education, even into the 1970s, preserved the social hierarchy. There was a system for the elites and a separate system for the lower classes. Sweden looked abroad to increase enrollment (equalizing opportunity) and improving education. The results, again, are impressive. Practically every child attended an elementary school by 1970, and college enrollment increased from 5% to 30% in twenty years. School was made affordable—Swedish college students for example do not pay tuition, receive generous grants, loans, and a monthly stipend[5].
Labor experienced its reform earlier than health or education. The labor unions were organized into an umbrella organization, the Landsorganisation or LO in 1898. In 1902 the businesses banded together under the Swedish Employers Federation or SAF. By 1938 they agreed to the Saltsjöbaden Agreement, which systemized talks between the two parties and set up an arbitration court. It was based off the September Compromise in Denmark (from 1899). However, it has not worked as well as the Danish counterpart, but it has largely accomplished its goals. After WWII, the Swedish government moved to give the workers more control over the companies in the form of stocks and employees were represented on boards of directors in the late 1970s.
As of today, the Swedish Lutheran Church is no longer controlled by the state, the first time it has been free from state control since Gustav Vasa converted the state to Lutheranism and took control of the church in the 1520s. In the 1950s, greater religious freedom was introduced, finally approaching the level of religious freedom in the US. Women were allowed to become priests in the state church, and pastors outside of the church were legally allowed to marry couples.
This is an incredibly brief and incomplete look at the welfare state, but the aim is summed up excellently by Scott: “The goal professed was unfettered opportunity for the individual, the method was oversight by the government to provide that opportunity and to prevent interference”[6].
All this is not to say that the system works perfectly and is without problems. A common joke is that Swedes complain about the weather and taxes, and the tax rate is spectacularly high (just under 50% of GDP). There is also the loss of freedom of action. While society is egalitarian and doors are open for anyone qualified, there is the paradox of inability to act. The welfare state also faces challenges to its viability in today’s world, but its resilience and adaptability clearly show that it will survive in some form for a long while. These are but some of the negatives that must be weighed against the positives of one of the most successful welfare states in Europe and the world.
Sweden provides the world with an excellent example of how the government can be responsive to the needs of its people and perform certain tasks better than the fabled private sector. While the world, and certainly the US, cannot adopt the Swedish program in its entirety (largely due to cultural differences, and Swedish culture prior to the welfare state certainly helped its acceptance and creation), the world should certainly examine how Sweden has created a successful welfare state and why it works as well as it does.
[1] http://homepage.mac.com/jrc/contrib/sweden_suicide.html
[2] Scott, Franklin D. Sweden: The Nation’s History. Southern Illinois University Press, 1988. p 524
[3] Scott, 540
[4] Scott, 526
[5] Scott, 535-37
[6] Scott, 526
Who's a Socialist?--Poll
Keeping with the theme of socialism, the current poll asks which country is more socialistic in terms of employee ownership of business. This post is to allow people to comment and debate the topic.
Please keep your comments respectful and thoughtful, and enjoy the debate.
Please keep your comments respectful and thoughtful, and enjoy the debate.
The Christian Nation Poll
A new poll has been published. This post is for people to comment and debate the poll topic: was the United States of America founded as a Christian Nation?
Please keep your comments respectful and thoughtful, and enjoy the debate.
Edit:
The poll closed some days ago. Here are the stats:
Total Votes: 8
Yes: 0
No: 4
It's Complicated: 4
Comments and debate is still encouraged and will remain open indefinitely.
Please keep your comments respectful and thoughtful, and enjoy the debate.
Edit:
The poll closed some days ago. Here are the stats:
Total Votes: 8
Yes: 0
No: 4
It's Complicated: 4
Comments and debate is still encouraged and will remain open indefinitely.
The Swedes Win Round Two
The poll was supposed to run to the 23rd, but I'm closing down the current question. My next topic will be Swedish social reforms around the time of the First World War. It recieved five votes, compared to topics Trent (3) and Nixon (3). The U.S.S. Maine recieved zero votes.
The post on Swedish social reforms should be up in roughly three weeks.
Thank you for voting, and keep your eyes peeled for any new polls and posts.
The post on Swedish social reforms should be up in roughly three weeks.
Thank you for voting, and keep your eyes peeled for any new polls and posts.
The Emancipation Proclamation
After the defeat of the confederate army at Antietam President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. The issue under investigation is as follows: what the proclamation actually stated, what it meant for the American Civil War and interested parties in Europe, and what relevance this document has on today's world.
The common misunderstanding concerning the Emancipation Proclamation is that it freed the slaves during the American Civil War. If this video is no joke, it is a question on our citizenship test (it’s the second to last question asked of Craig in the video).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvV6V3IJLX8.
The question: what did the Emancipation Proclamation do? The answer: it freed the slaves. He and the test are wrong. The Emancipation Proclamation, as written, meant that any slave in territory not controlled by the Union (or, any territory under the control of the confederacy as of 1863) is free. Clearly, this proclamation did not free the slaves in any direct and immediate manner. The official defeat of slavery came in the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. These are the facts.
So why did Lincoln issue this executive order? It was an incredibly risky political move. The war, up to this point, had solely been focused on the preservation of the Union. The war was not over slavery, but over state and federal power. Issuing this order could risk destroying Lincoln’s support and hinder the war effort. That said, there were two reasons to do this. A minor reason was economic. The most important reason, international.
The economic argument is thus: slaves provided the south with easy labor. Slavery was a part of the confederate war machine. Entice the slaves with freedom and the economy and war machine of the states in rebellion would collapse. However, the South never really had that strong a manufacturing base. It was the agricultural basin of the United States before the war, importing most of its heavy machinery from Great Britain and other European nations in exchange for cotton. The Union naval blockade of confederate ports was highly effective in shutting down this trade and the southern economy.
Perhaps the international aspect holds the key. The naval blockade went into affect by May 1861, and by the end of the year trade in the South was effectively shut down. If the South was to win, they would need allies. In some sense the confederacy already had an ally in Great Britain. Britain issued a proclamation of neutrality that while not recognizing the Confederacy allowed its ships use of Britain’s ports. Also, Great Britain had been building confederate ships and fighting Union ships. Further, it wanted to see the Union destroyed, thus eliminating a potential merchant-marine rival. The alliance, however, was far from being cast in concrete.
Before Britain would enter the war on the side of the confederacy they would have to show that victory against the Union was possible. The south just about did this. Ultimately, Great Britain (and the rest of Europe) stayed out of the civil war (even if the Trent Affair threatened to force the Union and Great Britain into war). This is where the Emancipation Proclamation becomes extremely important. Western Europe had abolished slavery in the early 1800s. The Emancipation Proclamation turned the war into a question over slavery. No longer was Lincoln fighting to preserve the Union but also to eliminate slavery. By issuing the proclamation after a tremendous Union victory, a moment of strength, and turning the war from a legal and constitutional matter into a moral test, Lincoln managed to prevent the south from finding any allies. It would be extremely hard for the British parliament to explain why it was fighting to preserve slavery when they had abolished it a generation ago. As Henry Adams said it so well “The Emancipation Proclamation has done more for us than all our former victories and all our diplomacy." This executive order, while not directly abolishing slavery, gave the Union a tremendous advantage in fighting the Civil War, helping ensure victory against the rebellious south, which then led to the end of slavery.
This leaves us with one question: why is the Emancipation Proclamation important today? As an executive order it is not. After all, the Thirteenth Amendment ends slavery. However, it was part of the reason why the Union defeated the Confederacy. This victory in the civil war answered some key questions: who has more power, the state or federal government? can a state legally secede from the Union? This war saw an increase in the power of the federal government and is the base justification for all further expansion of federal power, such as the New Deal, the Great Society, and the imperial presidency. It’s what enabled Carter to force the states to lower the speed limit to 55mph. States cannot secede from the Union unless they can successfully fight a war against the remainder of the United States. The Emancipation Proclamation also demonstrates the power of a properly executed moral claim for war and propaganda. In this case it prevented the Confederacy from building concrete alliances, enabling the Union to win. Russia’s war with Georgia is a good example of bad use of propaganda. They did not manage to prevent Georgia from building alliances with powerful Western nations, and because Russia has not successfully demonstrated the authenticity of its moral claim for the war, it will have little luck in its quest. The War on Terror is another good example. Initially the U.S. had the moral support of most of the world. It allowed us to declare war on Afghanistan. But we have since lost a great amount of that support. Had people paid attention to the lessons of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War, perhaps, Russia and the US would have an easier time.
The rest is up to you, the reader. Comment on the paper, on things left out, different interpretations, and so forth. Participation, not mere reading, is the key to learning and understanding.
The common misunderstanding concerning the Emancipation Proclamation is that it freed the slaves during the American Civil War. If this video is no joke, it is a question on our citizenship test (it’s the second to last question asked of Craig in the video).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvV6V3IJLX8.
The question: what did the Emancipation Proclamation do? The answer: it freed the slaves. He and the test are wrong. The Emancipation Proclamation, as written, meant that any slave in territory not controlled by the Union (or, any territory under the control of the confederacy as of 1863) is free. Clearly, this proclamation did not free the slaves in any direct and immediate manner. The official defeat of slavery came in the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. These are the facts.
So why did Lincoln issue this executive order? It was an incredibly risky political move. The war, up to this point, had solely been focused on the preservation of the Union. The war was not over slavery, but over state and federal power. Issuing this order could risk destroying Lincoln’s support and hinder the war effort. That said, there were two reasons to do this. A minor reason was economic. The most important reason, international.
The economic argument is thus: slaves provided the south with easy labor. Slavery was a part of the confederate war machine. Entice the slaves with freedom and the economy and war machine of the states in rebellion would collapse. However, the South never really had that strong a manufacturing base. It was the agricultural basin of the United States before the war, importing most of its heavy machinery from Great Britain and other European nations in exchange for cotton. The Union naval blockade of confederate ports was highly effective in shutting down this trade and the southern economy.
Perhaps the international aspect holds the key. The naval blockade went into affect by May 1861, and by the end of the year trade in the South was effectively shut down. If the South was to win, they would need allies. In some sense the confederacy already had an ally in Great Britain. Britain issued a proclamation of neutrality that while not recognizing the Confederacy allowed its ships use of Britain’s ports. Also, Great Britain had been building confederate ships and fighting Union ships. Further, it wanted to see the Union destroyed, thus eliminating a potential merchant-marine rival. The alliance, however, was far from being cast in concrete.
Before Britain would enter the war on the side of the confederacy they would have to show that victory against the Union was possible. The south just about did this. Ultimately, Great Britain (and the rest of Europe) stayed out of the civil war (even if the Trent Affair threatened to force the Union and Great Britain into war). This is where the Emancipation Proclamation becomes extremely important. Western Europe had abolished slavery in the early 1800s. The Emancipation Proclamation turned the war into a question over slavery. No longer was Lincoln fighting to preserve the Union but also to eliminate slavery. By issuing the proclamation after a tremendous Union victory, a moment of strength, and turning the war from a legal and constitutional matter into a moral test, Lincoln managed to prevent the south from finding any allies. It would be extremely hard for the British parliament to explain why it was fighting to preserve slavery when they had abolished it a generation ago. As Henry Adams said it so well “The Emancipation Proclamation has done more for us than all our former victories and all our diplomacy." This executive order, while not directly abolishing slavery, gave the Union a tremendous advantage in fighting the Civil War, helping ensure victory against the rebellious south, which then led to the end of slavery.
This leaves us with one question: why is the Emancipation Proclamation important today? As an executive order it is not. After all, the Thirteenth Amendment ends slavery. However, it was part of the reason why the Union defeated the Confederacy. This victory in the civil war answered some key questions: who has more power, the state or federal government? can a state legally secede from the Union? This war saw an increase in the power of the federal government and is the base justification for all further expansion of federal power, such as the New Deal, the Great Society, and the imperial presidency. It’s what enabled Carter to force the states to lower the speed limit to 55mph. States cannot secede from the Union unless they can successfully fight a war against the remainder of the United States. The Emancipation Proclamation also demonstrates the power of a properly executed moral claim for war and propaganda. In this case it prevented the Confederacy from building concrete alliances, enabling the Union to win. Russia’s war with Georgia is a good example of bad use of propaganda. They did not manage to prevent Georgia from building alliances with powerful Western nations, and because Russia has not successfully demonstrated the authenticity of its moral claim for the war, it will have little luck in its quest. The War on Terror is another good example. Initially the U.S. had the moral support of most of the world. It allowed us to declare war on Afghanistan. But we have since lost a great amount of that support. Had people paid attention to the lessons of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War, perhaps, Russia and the US would have an easier time.
The rest is up to you, the reader. Comment on the paper, on things left out, different interpretations, and so forth. Participation, not mere reading, is the key to learning and understanding.
So Just What is History?
Before we go any further into the realm of history, we need to know what defines it.
One way to define history, and it is taught in this manner, is as a collection of facts. Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. William the Conqueror wrested England from Harold II in 1066. John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. These are all facts. Boring, indisputable facts. Some facts are debatable. Was Wallenberg assassinated by the Soviet Union in the late 1940s? Was Oswald Kennedy’s killer? In these cases, the outcome is largely known, but there are still questions to answer, such as when, how, or why something happened. Still, this is not quite the history we are seeking.
A second way to define history is as an interpretation. Think of history as a story told by certain groups that have different ideas about their world. This would be primary source history. We can read the letters of officers and enlisted soldiers in the American Civil War and discern a difference between the two groups: what their fears and hopes were, how they viewed the world around them, what they thought of events they acted in. History as an interpretation is more than this though. The story passes through two more filters. The first is time. Someone reading the letters of General Lee today will no doubt feel different about it compared to the person the letter was intended for. The second filter is our own interpretation of history. Collectively this is known as historiography, and historiography changes through time. The interpretation of the American Revolution has changed several times since the survivors of the war and creators of the Republic looked back upon their deeds, moving from Heroic to Nationalist to Imperial and Progressive and a sort of synthesis between the final two. This shapes our basic outlook on the events and people, thus giving historians of two different historiographies two different interpretations.
This, ultimately, is the interesting, the fascinating history. Not the collection of facts, but how those facts are interpreted, assembled into stories to be told. Historians are storytellers, but history has not always been told with an objective purpose in mind.
Examine the Heimskringla Saga written by Icelander Snorri Sturluson. He writes the history of Norway with a very certain agenda and readily omits, changes, or simply creates facts and events to drive home his points. Another prime example of history written to satisfy an agenda is the Bible (it could be argued that most, if not all religious texts that tell a history fall into this category). A more modern example is the first "biography" of America's first president George Washington. Washington, as far as historians can tell, never chopped down a cherry tree and told his father "I cannot tell a lie". Still, we celebrate his birthday by consuming cherry cobbler in school cafeterias across the U.S. A more objective interpretation tries to keep its "facts" inline. Creating facts is a great way to become discredited as a modern historian.
The stories told in the following blogs will try to avoid this subjective skullduggery while still telling a relevant story. No blog will simply be a list of facts, but an exploration of what those facts mean, how they are coherent, and so forth. And with that, we begin.
One way to define history, and it is taught in this manner, is as a collection of facts. Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. William the Conqueror wrested England from Harold II in 1066. John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. These are all facts. Boring, indisputable facts. Some facts are debatable. Was Wallenberg assassinated by the Soviet Union in the late 1940s? Was Oswald Kennedy’s killer? In these cases, the outcome is largely known, but there are still questions to answer, such as when, how, or why something happened. Still, this is not quite the history we are seeking.
A second way to define history is as an interpretation. Think of history as a story told by certain groups that have different ideas about their world. This would be primary source history. We can read the letters of officers and enlisted soldiers in the American Civil War and discern a difference between the two groups: what their fears and hopes were, how they viewed the world around them, what they thought of events they acted in. History as an interpretation is more than this though. The story passes through two more filters. The first is time. Someone reading the letters of General Lee today will no doubt feel different about it compared to the person the letter was intended for. The second filter is our own interpretation of history. Collectively this is known as historiography, and historiography changes through time. The interpretation of the American Revolution has changed several times since the survivors of the war and creators of the Republic looked back upon their deeds, moving from Heroic to Nationalist to Imperial and Progressive and a sort of synthesis between the final two. This shapes our basic outlook on the events and people, thus giving historians of two different historiographies two different interpretations.
This, ultimately, is the interesting, the fascinating history. Not the collection of facts, but how those facts are interpreted, assembled into stories to be told. Historians are storytellers, but history has not always been told with an objective purpose in mind.
Examine the Heimskringla Saga written by Icelander Snorri Sturluson. He writes the history of Norway with a very certain agenda and readily omits, changes, or simply creates facts and events to drive home his points. Another prime example of history written to satisfy an agenda is the Bible (it could be argued that most, if not all religious texts that tell a history fall into this category). A more modern example is the first "biography" of America's first president George Washington. Washington, as far as historians can tell, never chopped down a cherry tree and told his father "I cannot tell a lie". Still, we celebrate his birthday by consuming cherry cobbler in school cafeterias across the U.S. A more objective interpretation tries to keep its "facts" inline. Creating facts is a great way to become discredited as a modern historian.
The stories told in the following blogs will try to avoid this subjective skullduggery while still telling a relevant story. No blog will simply be a list of facts, but an exploration of what those facts mean, how they are coherent, and so forth. And with that, we begin.
A Project of Knowledge, A Product of Love
History is a great storyteller. It captivates and fascinates hundreds of thousands of people each day. History tells everyone a different story about something. We each find our own part, our own piece, of the story and we latch onto it. History is at once the most common and most known subject and the least understood. History is the most loved and clearly least desired subject.
The goal with this blog is two-fold. The first purpose is clear: to explore History and tell as accurate as possible the story behind the event. The second purpose is ambitious: to show how this History is relevant and create excitement and understanding about it.
Each month a new Historical event will be explored, ranging from the beginning of civilization to the present day. Common myths and misuses will be the first casualties; the death of ignorance the last fatality. The idea that Columbus was the first European to discover the Americas is one such myth. The sophomoric complaint over the relevance of what happened two hundred years ago will be challenged by examining how actions in the past have important ramifications today and affect the possible choices for tomorrow.
And thus bring we the past to the future.
The goal with this blog is two-fold. The first purpose is clear: to explore History and tell as accurate as possible the story behind the event. The second purpose is ambitious: to show how this History is relevant and create excitement and understanding about it.
Each month a new Historical event will be explored, ranging from the beginning of civilization to the present day. Common myths and misuses will be the first casualties; the death of ignorance the last fatality. The idea that Columbus was the first European to discover the Americas is one such myth. The sophomoric complaint over the relevance of what happened two hundred years ago will be challenged by examining how actions in the past have important ramifications today and affect the possible choices for tomorrow.
And thus bring we the past to the future.
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