Select Bibliography of Contributions to Economic and Social History Appearing in Scandinavian Books,Periodicals and Year-books, 1986

Abstract

This issue of the annual bibliography of the Review is arranged according to themes. Within each of the eight sub-divisions the contributors are presented in alphabetical order. The country of publication is indicated by ‘D’, ‘F’, ‘N’ and ‘S’ for Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, respectively.     

Sweden's iron ore exports to Germany, 1933–1944

Abstract

Rolf Karlbom's article about Swedish iron ore exports to Germany during the Nazi era¹ is an attempt to examine a very important problem as yet unsolved—the significance of the Swedish ore deliveries to Germany. His study begins with the following two questions:² 1. ‘How much of the total consumption of this raw material by German industry did Swedish ore cover during these years?’

2. ‘How far was access to Swedish iron ore a sine qua non for the continuance of the armaments programme?’

3. These basic questions indicate the main problems. Karlbom's answers to them are not wholly convincing because of some weaknesses in his approach.

     

Birgit Karlsson,Egenintresse eller samhällsintresse,Nazityskland och svensk skogsindustri 1933–1945

Abstract

In Vol. XV (1967) of this journal, Alan S. Milward and Jorg-Jöhannes Jäger published criticisms of my article on Swedish iron are exports to Nazi Germany.¹ Turning first to Milward's contribution, this is based on the assumption that the German economy was a ‘blitzkrieg war economy’ in the period preceding the attack upon the Soviet Union. This view, which has been expressed before by B. H. Klein, undoubtedly brings a number of valuable refinements into the hitherto exaggerated estimates of the level of German armaments at the outbreak of the Second World War.² But when he goes on to say that ‘in such a war economy all considerations of potential armaments-producing capacity were rejected in favour of present armaments-producing capacity’,³ Milward palpably oversimplifies a complex problem. In fact, the demand for an armaments programme ‘in depth’, to quote General Thomas, did make itself heard long before the autumn of 1941.     

Serfdom in esthonia during the period of Swedish rule

Abstract

For quite some time after World War II peasant behavior in less developed countries was ‘unproblematic’. There was a general consensus that peasants were not ‘economic men’, in the sense that they tried to maximize profits as postulated by mainstream economic theory. Instead, their acts were assumed to be governed by ‘tradition’, or ‘conservatism’, which by and large had nothing to do with the type of maximizing or minimizing behavior which acquired prominence in economic theory not least by the central role that was conferred on it in Paul Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis.¹ Their ambitions and horizons were thought to be limited in such a way as to render standard economic theory inapplicable in the study of peasant behavior. The discussion focused on the ‘inert’, or ‘lazy’, (satisficing) peasant.²     

Technical change and the ‘technology’ myth

Abstract

In recent years, historians and other English-speaking commentators on technical change and technical functions have often chosen to discuss these matters under the heading ‘technology’. Thus, there have been discussions about such matters as ‘echnological innovation’, ‘technological invention’, and even ‘the imperatives of technology’, ‘the technostructure’ and ‘technological drivenness’.¹ One economist with a special interest in historical matters, Kuznets, has virtually defined a separable condition of ‘modernity’ as the era of ‘technology’ — ‘The epochal innovation that distinguishes the modern economic epoch is the extended application of science to problems of economic production’ alternatively, it is ‘the utilization of a potential provided by modern technology’. An economic historian (Musson) has it that ‘applied science is … the major force behind modern economic growth’. And a prominent historian of the so-called ‘technology’, Forbes, has argued that in ‘our modern world both technology and engineering are branches of applied science’.²     

Clé Lesger,The Rise of the Amsterdam Market and Information Exchange – Merchants,Commercial Expansion and Change in the Spatial Economy of the Low Countries,c.1550–1630

Abstract

Between 1930 and 1935, Sverre Steen wrote four volumes of Det norske folks liv og historie [The Life and History of the Norwegian People], covering the period 1500–1814. He has now half completed the task of bringing the work further towards our own time in a comprehensive series entitled ‘Free Norway’. The first three volumes are devoted to political history in the period immediately following 1814. In this, the fourth volume, entitled ‘The Old Society’, Steen examines the social and economic history of the period 1814–1840. Both the title and the arrangement of the book indicate that Steen's intention is to provide a survey of the foundations of Norwegian society before continuing his work in further volumes, not only about ‘Free Norway’, but also about ‘New Norway’.     

Food,fare and nutrition some reflections on the historical development of food consumption

Abstract

Cajsa Warg's old maxim ‘One eats what there is’ — apparently self-explanatory in its simplicity — has a different significance for the understanding of the historical development of food consumption and diet from what might be expected at first glance. The absolute food surplus which industrial and post-industrial society has generated during the last century has helped to conceal certain essential links between food consumption and more general economic and social development in fare-industrial society which was not characterised by self-generating and constantly increasing growth. The assumption of food scarcity in former times, allied to a paucity of research in this field, has among other things conjured up an image of a continual improvement and increase in food consumption coupled with the massive rise in productive capacity during the most recent centuries.     

The theories of ‘stages of growth’

Abstract

The idea of a ‘virtuous circle’ has always been implied in the theories of ‘stages of growth’, though never systematically demonstrated, We are here concerned with two aspects of these theories: (1) the implied theory of circular causation with cumulative effects; (2) the implicit systematic biases. The biases operate through the selection of strategic factors on which interest is focussed and of assumptions concerning their role in historical processes. This selection of strategic factors and of assumptions about their role remains essentially a priori, however much illustrative material is amassed. It never is—and, in this teleological approach, it never can be—empirically verified or refuted. A fundamental preconception is, moreover, the similarity of evolution in different countries at different historical periods; this is why these theories can be used, and are used, for prediction. But similarity depends on the level of abstraction and the choice of features compared. Such comparisons can be refuted only by demonstrating that other principles of selection and comparison are equally possible—and, of course, ex post, that the predictions do not come true.     

Collusion and combines in Canada, 1880–1890

ABSTRACT

It is a little-known fact that Canada adopted its own antitrust law one year before the landmark Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The Anti-Combines Act of 1889 (‘the Act’) was adopted after a decade in which ‘combines’ (the Canadian equivalent of ‘trusts’) had grown more numerous. From the combines’ numbers, Canadian historians, legal scholars, and economists have inferred that consumer welfare was hindered. However, price and output evidence has never been marshalled to provide even a first step towards assessing the veracity of this inference. This paper undertakes that task. I highlight the fact that the output from industries accused of collusion increased faster than national output in the decade before the passage of the Act and that their prices accordingly fell faster than the national price index. I argue that these findings militate for the position that the origins of Canada's Anti-Combines Act were partially rooted in rent-seeking processes similar to those that American scholars have found driving the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.     

The ‘price revolution’ of the sixteenth century: Some Swedish evidence

Abstract

Since the publication in 1895 of George Wiebe's work, Zur Geschichte der Preisreuolution des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts, ¹ the ‘price revolution’ has been a generally accepted concept found in most historical textbooks. By the ‘price revolution’, Wiebe meant the general rise in commodity prices which occurred in western Europe during the 16th century, the primary cause of which according to him was the influx of silver from the new Spanish possessions in America. His explanation also came to be generally accepted, but perhaps an even more significant contribution to the influence which this book has wielded is the fact that he synthesized in readily usable form the price analyses in existence when he wrote, i.e. at the end of the 19th century. In the 1930s his tables still formed the basis of sweeping conclusions and generalizations.     

Espen Moe,Governance, Growth and Global Leadership: The Role of the State in Technological Progress, 1750–2000

Abstract

The concept of the ‘dissolution of estate society’ (standssamfunnets opplesning) has not been much used in Norwegian historical research. The great process of social change which took place in the 19th century, the main features of which have their counterparts in the social development of the other Scandinavian countries, has been discussed within other conceptual contexts. Norwegian historians have often stressed the contrast between an urban society and an agricultural society based on self-sufficiency, or between the people and their administrators. In economic history the changes which came with industrialization, and the shift from an agricultural economy based on self-sufficiency to an agricultural economy based on buying and selling, have been the subject of much research. In social and political history the subjects which have aroused the greatest interest have been the struggles of the farmers as well against the bureaucracy as against the commercial capitalism of the towns, and the role of the farmers in the movement towards political democracy.     

Easy prey? Firms based in small nations and international cartels, 1919–1939

Abstract

It is taken as common sense that small countries have been more pressed and exploited by transnational enterprises than large ones. Economists call this the ‘small-country-squeeze’. Our contribution tries to transfer the thesis to the micro-economic level: Did mighty international cartels exploit their cartel partners based in small countries more easily than enterprises from larger states? From a viewpoint of political logic, or everyday feeling, such a thesis looks straightforward. In the following we apply the thesis of small-country-squeeze to several cases of cartels during their peak period, 1919–1939, and find surprisingly little evidence for this ‘common sense’. The assumption rather needs to be reversed: We should take non-discrimination as the normal case and try to find contradicting cases of discrimination.     

The settlement preferences of Scandinavian emigrants to the United States, 1850–1960

Abstract

In the past, text books have made a false distinction between the former agrarian structure of Denmark on the one hand and of the remaining Scandinavian countries on the other. The proper dividing line should intersect the kingdom of Sweden, since farmers in Norrland and Finland were peasant-proprietors at the opening of the modern age while elsewhere in Scandinavia they were generally tenants. Much of the land not owned by peasants belonged to the Crown or the churchy but neither of them practised large-scale farming save in exceptional instances. Thus it is of crucial importance to establish at the outset the extent of landownership by the nobility and by other ‘persons of standing’ (stõndspersoner) about 1600 and how this changed during the century. In Sweden noble landownership is defined to include even land held by feudal right (donationer) and freehold or crown land for which a noble has bought or been given the right to levy taxes (frälseköp). Its status as noble property is not affected by whatever proportion of it may be held as virtual peasant freehold with hereditary rights of use (bördsrätt) and security against eviction and incorporation into the tax-exempt demesne farm (säteri) of the feudal property; such a holding is called skattefräise hemman.     

Engaging with homelessness in the City of Tshwane: Ethical and practical considerations

ABSTRACT

Policies and practices aimed at developing more engaged universities that are responsive to the needs of society have become key features of the higher education landscape of most countries. Visions of universities ‘engaged’ in matters of local importance increasingly require academics to reframe their scholarship as some form of ‘engagement’. This requirement has been addressed in many different disciplines and has been met with ambivalence. Academics who see engagement as a new form of ‘public good’ find it enhancing of their teaching and research activities, while others view engaged work as unnecessary and problematic ‘third mission’ activities that impede on ‘normal’ academic work. This article aims to contribute to these debates by interrogating the paradoxes of action and inaction. Drawing on recent experiences in reviewing a policy on homelessness for a municipality in South Africa, the article seeks to bring the ambiguities and challenges of engagement into greater visibility.     

Resistance to coal inequalities and the possibilities of a just transition in South Africa*

ABSTRACT

Coal mining and burning are among the most destructive activities on the planet, and a major driver of environmental inequality in South Africa. This article suggests that, despite heavy constraints, initiatives involving resistance to coal are building a ‘counter-power’ which challenges inequality, generates solidarity, and is potentially infused by imaginative visions of another world beyond coal. Following the ‘social power’ approach this vision could, with deeper connections between three sites of resistance to coal – organised labour, mining affected communities and environmental justice organisations – cohere into a vision of a ‘just transition’. This could embed the anti-coal struggle in a social movement for an alternative development path to challenge deepening poverty and inequality.     

Scandinavia and the advance of the Hanseatics

Abstract

In chapter IV of The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. II (1952), Professor M. M. Postan has devoted an unusual amount of space and attention to Scandinavian-Baltic trade. Its varying phases are expertly described, its characteristics clearly distinguished, and the Scandinavians are shown to have played a great and important role in the early Middle Ages. Postan is the first historian to have made use of the research of the last few decades into the Viking Age and to have described the Scandinavians, in a general presentation, as something more than mere pirates hostile to culture; he saw them rather as pioneers and active merchants who during the 9th and 10th centuries extended the existing commercial relations of the West with the Baltic, by way of the rivers of Russia, to the civilizations of the East beyond the Black and Caspian Seas, and who in this way ‘left, if anything, deeper trace than the Frisians in the preceding period’ (p. 178). The activities and achievements of their Cerman-Hanseatic successors are described with no less insight and understanding (pp. 184 ff.): by an ‘almost revolutionary’ transformation of commercial life they advanced from the Rhineland and founded a professional merchant class and a rich urban culture.     

Nuclear power: The family in decolonial perspective and ‘pro-family’ politics in Africa

ABSTRACT

This article argues that the normative construction of ‘family’ in heteronormative ‘nuclear’ terms is infused with power relations, and therefore must not be taken for granted as an analytical category or concept. Not only a site where racialised and patriarchal western notions of sexed and gendered hierarchies have been naturalised and institutionalised, the ‘nuclear family’ model was positioned as a signifier of modernity, civilisation and progress within eurocentric knowledge construction that served colonial interests. This discussion reviews decolonial thinking on the nuclear family, as well as anti-imperialist literature on the colonial history of the nuclear family ideal. These perspectives are brought into conversation with current developments in which the nuclear family model is being reinvigorated by the conservative US-based ‘pro-family’ movement. The ‘family’, it is concluded, is entangled in multiple relations of geo-political power that should be taken into account in research and the production of knowledge around kinship in African contexts.     

Book briefs

Eastern Cape publication

Institute of Social and Economic Research

Development issues in the Eastern Cape: A review and assessment Working Paper 25, University of Rhodes, 1986, 96 pp. R5.

Richard N Langlois (ed)

Economics as a process ‘Essays in the New Institutional Economics’, Cambridge University Press, London, 1986, xi + 262 pp, R87,70

Paul Collier, Samir Radwan and Samuel Wangwe with Albert Wagner

Labour and poverty in rural Tanzania ‘Ujamaa and Rural Development in the United Republic of Tanzania’, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986, vii + 143 pp, £17,50

Allen Buchanan

Ethics, efficiency, and the market Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1985, xi + 135 pp, £15,00     

Women's opportunities in Swedish society

Abstract

Research in economic history has been accompanied by rapidly developing research in social history. Demographic history, the family and social change, together with popular movements, have been taken up as objects of study. The three Swedish studies discussed here arise from projects in these fields. The studies of Sten Carlsson and Kerstin Moberg form part of projects in the Department of History at the University of Uppsala on ‘the family in demographic and social change in Sweden after 1800’ and on ‘functions of the class society: popular movements’. Gunhild Kyle's study is part of a project in the Department of History at the University of Gothenburg on ‘women in industrial society’.