Did the 1976 Swedish workplace democracy reform, MBL, make the Swedish model more ‘socialist’?

What is it about?

To this day, the image of Sweden as a radical third option between capitalism and socialism still lingers. In international left-wing debate, democratically run workplaces define contemporary visions of the Swedish Model as ‘the international beacon of a democratic socialism’. This article asks the question: Did the 1976 Swedish workplace democracy reform, MBL, really make the Swedish model more ‘socialist’? Drawing on the internal meeting protocols of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, SAP, the article narrates the events leading up to the MBL decision, from the perspective of the SAP board and its executive committee. At SAP board meetings in the early 1970s, concern over communist-led, anti-democratic activism at the workplaces was a recurring topic. For example, in 1973, in the Stockholm city social services, management had been sidelined by revolting employees, and replaced by weekly mass rallies, which were convened during working hours to decide on how work should be organised. Furthermore, local social democratic union functionaries felt ‘personally heavily exposed and persecuted’ by communist activists at workplaces. This article argues that the myth and narrative of the MBL reform was more socialist than its origins and design. By design, the 1976 MBL law forced employers to inform, discuss and negotiate with employees before making decisions. However, the law assigned this right of consultation to the elected representatives of established unions alone. In effect, the law protected workplaces against the illiberal dynamic of mass meetings, coups and minority takeovers. The argument is put forward that the MBL reform was characteristic of a bifurcated strategy that the SAP developed during the early 1970s. On the one hand, the SAP pursued policies with broad cross-class support and, in practice, never left its tradition of reformism and liberal democracy. At the same time however, the SAP now developed an increasingly radical rhetoric, and tried to take on the radical left on common issues – including demands for more workplace democracy and a range of symbolic issues in foreign policy. This radical rhetoric eventually gained a momentum of its own, with effects both on domestic Swedish politics and on the international perception of the Swedish Model.

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Why is it important?

The article has argued that contrary to the dominant power-resource interpretation of the advent of the Swedish welfare state, on the issue of workplace democracy, the SAP was not really pushing the centre-right parties towards the Swedish Model; rather the reverse was just as true. White-collar unions, the SAF, and the Centre and Liberal Parties were all putting forward their own proposals. The MBL was not just a social democratic reform project but also the project of a much broader cross-class alliance, and even of employer interest. Nevertheless, this study wishes to transcend current analytical frameworks of how cross-class alliances and employer interests have contributed to welfare state growth by moving from a focus on rational self-interest to the level of discourse and identity. The strategy of Swedish social democracy was bifurcated: the radical narrative of the reform – its myth and ceremony – catered to a radicalised public opinion that demanded more egalitarianism in society. Concurrently, the design and implementation of the reform strengthened established unions in the workplaces, at the expense of radical activism. In conclusion, the case study offered here answers to the call for more detailed, qualitative case studies of the impact of world society trends on the national level. Particularly, it places the development of the Swedish Model in the context of the cultural cold war over hearts and minds in Europe.

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