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rk without trade-union membership was first debated in the Diet, a Professor Westman, of the Agrarian party, gave his approval, but the following year decided to oppose it. Originally, he felt that the rule of law required protection for the individual. ‘But what, after all, is the rule of law?’ he said in a speech to the Diet explaining his change of mind. ‘Many of us, perhaps all, have carried over, without any modification, opinions from the old liberal, individualistic time, into the new era of collectivism and organization to which Progress has carried us.’ The professor had correctly interpreted the direction that Swedish society was taking, and it is hard to doubt that his change of attitude was a sound <a href="http://www.vibramksoshoessale.com/products_new.html"><strong>vibram sale</strong></a> reflection of the views of most of his countrymen. Saltsjobaden was to take Sweden into ‘the new era of collectivism and organization’. Although the government kept out of the Saltsjobaden talks, its presence hovered, unseen, but everlastingly felt, in the conference rooms. It secured, by the agreement, a tacitly prescribed say mbt shoes uk in the wage-bargaining mechanism that had been established. 94 The New Totalitarians Saltsjobaden was ostensibly an armistice between labour and capital; in reality, it was a concordat defining the powers and jurisdiction of the employers, the trade unions and the State. The written clauses committed the signatories to the maintenance of industrial peace: the unwritten ones laid down the principle that, in return for freedom from State interference in the conduct of their affairs, both sides of industry would enforce the economic policy of the government. Apart from the obvious desirability of avoiding strikes, industrial relations are of principal concern in their effect on wages. Wages* run wild bring the threat of inflation; conversely, to hold them under control, if it does not necessarily mean to be in control of the national economy, at least means that a frightening source of economic danger has been tamed. It is this that the Swedish mbt lami government needed for the execution of its policies, and Saltsjobaden gave it to them. The government required the power of establishing the total cost of industrial wages; the unions and the employers promised to supply it. From the start, the Saltsjobaden partners loyally observed their side of the understanding. Before each round of central bargaining, the government specifies the greatest tolerable increase in the national wage bill, and it is within the limits thus laid out that negotiations then proceed. Beyond that, there is no overt State intrusion. The LO and the employers’ confederation are left alone to settle the details of the industrial wage structure as a private matter. The effect of this was that the government had delegated control of a vital sector of national life to a pair of non- * In 1938, the average monthly salary of Swedish office workers was 290 kronor (?5.40 or 70 at current rates of exchange: 1,328 kronor or ?30 or 315 in terms of buying power in 1973). The comparable salary in 1973 was 2,500 kronor (?45 or 592). In 1970, the average weekly pay of a Swedish factory worker was 414 kronor ?4 mbt trainers outlet or 80). The comparable figure for the United States was 143 (?9); for Great Britain, ?7.50 ( mbt walking shoes 66). Since 1965, Swedish industrial wages have risen by about seven per cent annually. The Corporate State 95 official bodies. The advantages were manifold. In matters touching the Labour Market, the government now had to deal with only two monolithic organizations. All contacts were centralized, and spheres of influence defined. Through the Saltsjobaden agreement, unions and employers had, in effect, coalesced into a single corporate structure mbt stockists in order to regulate the Labour Market. This was precisely what Mussolini had attempted to impose on Italy at about the same time. But his compatriots had shown little enthusiasm for the idea, the employers being singularly cool, and he failed in this, as in many other of his intentions. The Swedes had voluntarily accomplished what the Italian dictator had been unable to enforce. In a corporate State, non-official organizations carry out official duties. The Swedish trade unions provide a good example, unemployment insurance being entirely in their hands. They collect premiums, make payments and administer the necessary public funds. The local trade-union branches serve as unemployment insurance offices and, in the mbt kisumu exercise of this particular function, they do not require membership as a condition of service. They are, in fact, specifically prevented from doing so because, in this instance, they are acting as a government agency. This practice is justified by the State on the grounds that a local union official knows the population better than any civil servant could. Most likely, he will be personally <a href="http://www.vibramksoshoessale.com/specials.html"><strong>vibram five</strong></a> acquainted with applicants for unemployment benefits. He will also know exactly what work is to be found and where, and he can detect malingering far more readily. In a word, it is more efficient.* * In spite of the paper work, the unions display considerable anxiety to keep unemployment insurance in their hands. In the words of an LO official: “The administration of unemployment insurance is psychologically good for us. We get a lot of prestige, and our members see an added concrete and good cause for their unions’ continued existence.’ 96 The New Totalitarians At intervals varying from one to three years, the LO and the Employers’ Confederation negotiate a new central wage agreement. The government conveys its wishes, partly in public statements, and partly in private contacts. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that this is a ukase from above, to be obeyed blindly, if resentfully. It is the nature of corporatism that each constituent organization, or at least its officials, consider mbt shoes australia themselves a branch of the State, so that no fundamental antagonism exists between the two. In the particular case of wage bargaining, the unions, the government and employers, whatever their ostensible sectarian interests, share an earnest desire to ensure the success of the national economy. Each of the three possesses its own body of formidable economic expertise, more than capable of calculating the rise in wages that the country can afford. By a process of continuous consultation (in which, to ensure the best possible advice, the private banks are included) a suitable figure is hammered out in advance and, when the government presents its specification, it is in fact not conveying a Cabinet decision, but speaking for the consensus between itself, industry and the unions. Neither the employers nor the government have any difficulty in accepting the limitation of wages. The system stands or falls by the ability of the unions to resolve the dichotomy of representing their members at the same time as guarding the interests of the State. They have to uphold industrial peace while enforcing wage restraint. Much has been achieved by the group mentality of the Swedes, aided by continuous instruction which has drilled into the average workman the notion of renouncing some personal benefit in the collective interest. Nevertheless, there is a considerable residue of working-class feeling which, if it is not to turn into rank insubordination, must be mbt shoes sale conciliated by a show of fighting the bosses. In order to do this, the employers, by tacit agreement, The Corporate State 97 act the whipping boy. Central wage bargaining has taken on the form of a charade in which the LO pretends to be a militant defender of the working man’s rights, attacking the niggardly offers of the employers. To judge by their public statements, the LO and employers’ representatives are at daggers drawn. In fact, behind the scenes, they are on the most amiable of terms. At the top, to take one example, Mr Arne Geijer, the secretary-general of mbt shoes the LO and Mr Kurt- Steffan Giesecke, managing director of the Employers’ Confederation, got on very well with each other, regularly meeting out of the public eye. Such contacts are pursued at various levels and in the intervals between the formal negotiations both sides exchange views quietly, rather as the condottiere of the Italian Renaissance were supposed to do in order to arrange convincing, but not too bloodthirsty battles. Each side will often try to help the other out of difficulties. For example, in 1969, a high official of the Employers’ Confederation was told by a LO acquaintance that a certain firm was paying its employees more than the central agreement prescribed. This is quite as serious a breach of contract as cutting wages, and the LO man was concerned because of the threat it posed to the structure of the Labour Market. In the first place, it implied that the company had tried to improve production and attract labour by using wages as a bait. Under the Swedish system, that is heresy, because it means introducing competition, which is inconsistent with order. It also weakens the power of the central authority by allowing freedom of action at the periphery. The theory of central wage bargaining is that the principals establish norms for the whole country, and regulate any local variation. There must be uniformity and monolithic control, since bidding for labour, the natural consequence of full employment, introduces elements of disorder. The LO man was further perturbed because the incident demonstrated a lamentable initiative on the part of a local 98 The New Totalitarians union branch, which meant a challenge to the prerogatives of his own central organization. Thus it was that he appealed for help to his ostensible enemy on the employers’ side of the fence. To reprimand a union for obtaining higher wages was clearly impolitic, whereas it was perfectly conceivable to reproach mbt shoes review an industrialist for paying too much. The man from the Employers’ Confederation agreed with the LO point of view, and promised to bring the errant company to heel – with little success as cheap mbts it transpired. In very private moments, men of the LO and the Employers’ Confederation will admit that they like and understand each other, and that it is something of a strain to have to go through a ritual quarrel demanded by political rules. Sometimes the mask slips. In 1971, the placidity of the Swedish Labour Market was seriously disturbed by a strike of civil servants. They belonged to a splinter group beyond the power of the LO, and the government countered with a harshness unknown since the beginning of the century. The purpose was to crush the mavericks and re-establish the monopoly of the LO, a goal much desired by both the LO and the private employers. Nevertheless, the mbt chapa appearance of conflict horrified them and, although engaged at the time in a particularly stiff round of public negotiations, the LO and Employers’ Confederation rapidly dropped their mask of belligerency to treat each other with unwonted public courtesy. But under normal conditions, the same bellicose ritual is re-enacted. There are interminable and acrimonious negotiations, during which open rupture is threatened, only to be averted at the <a href="http://www.vibramksoshoessale.com/specials.html"><strong>five fingers discount</strong></a> last moment by what appears to be the retreat of the capitalists. The unions can then show that they have forced the employers to increase their original wage offer. But since that offer was adjusted in order mbt shoes online to make the final compromise what the Minister of Finance would like, the necessary display of aggressive bargaining can be mounted The Corporate State 99 without damage to the economic situation of the day. The consequence of this is that the man on the factory floor will accept as a righteous mbt discount triumph the kind of wage increase which, if it were communicated as a simple decision by his employer, would raise his spleen and drive him to strike. It may be objected that a device of this nature is bound to be seen through. A few leaders of society do understand the situation, but the man in the street does not. There are a number of reasons for this. In the first place, the average trade unionist has long been indoctrinated by the Labour movement, so that he believes, more or less, in the authenticity of militancy in the central wage bargaining. The mass media also keep up the pretence, because the Labour Market is tabu. An exposure would never be tolerated, because the communicators, by instinct and conditioning, protect the institutions of the State. There is also the propensity of the Swede to take appearance for reality. As long as he has the correct scenery and sound effects, he is perfectly happy. And yet there may be limits to his credulity. An outbreak of wildcat stoppages in 1969-70, culminating in a miners’ strike in northern Sweden, had its roots in alienation from the official trade-union leadership, and an inchoate suspicion that the LO was in league with the government and the employers. At first sight, the Swedish Labour Market appears to be a conspiracy. And, to a great degree, that is undoubtedly true. It is not so much that the conduct of wage negotiations and the imposition of suitable restraint are hatched by a few men <a href="http://ncpjy.zgts.gov.cn/view.php?id=171"><strong>Authentic Nike Air Force 1 LE (Kids) – Shop Nike Air Force 1 LE ...</strong></a> in smoke-filled rooms, but that the rules mbt of self-preservation demand mutual consideration of each other’s interests. The government needs a healthy economy to remain in office; the trade unions need it to keep a hold on their members, and the employers need it for profits and the avoidance of State interference. It has been government policy that, as long as industry works efficiently and plays the game in 100 The New Totalitarians maintaining peace with labour, private ownership will not be threatened by nationalization. Yet the nature of the corporate State may impose public control in another way. Industrial democracy is a tradeunion demand and government policy. This means that the employees in each major enterprise are to be represented in the boardroom. For decades, works councils have existed in which the men have been able to make their voice heard, but these organizations have by definition been consultative and restricted to the discussion of working conditions. But mbt sale now the trade unions and the government want the workers to have a say in the running of the firms by which they are employed. Each company board is to have a director, elected by the staff. However, the trade unions have no intention of permitting indiscriminate elevation from the shop floor. They insist that the workers’ representatives must be trade-union officials and, in the case of large plants and major industries, LO appointments. The LO says in private that independent representatives would not be tolerated because they would threaten the domination of the trade-union movement, although the reason openly advanced is that the complexity of modern industry requires specialized economic and technical knowledge that the man on the factory floor is unlikely to possess. The trade unions consider industrial democracy as a means of extending the power of their organizations into the management of industry, which means the invasion of one corporate power by another. In this way, the government will have secured the penetration of industry by a branch of the State more sympathetic to itself, thereby expanding its influence. The corporations which, in the manner of the LO and the Employers’ Confederation, serve as the vicars of the State, are described in Swedish political terminology as central organizations. They are monolithic institutions, administering zones of national life. Their strength is that they have not been The Corporate State 101 imposed by mbt walking shoes political theorists, but have grown naturally out