Collapse of a Bourgeoisie? The Wealthy in Stockholm, 1915–1965

Abstract

This article explores the decline of the propertied bourgeoisie in Sweden in the twentieth century by analyzing data from the Stockholm Directory of Wealth reporting on private wealth in the years 1914, 1928 and 1963. Wealth tax statistics are used as complementary sources. How did the overall level of wealth change among the affluent Stockholmers during this period? Who were the wealthiest people in Stockholm and how did the social stratification within the richest change over time? The main results are: first, strongly declining overall mean wealth (−58 per cent) among the richest with a dramatic drop already before 1945 (thus before the expansion of the welfare state); and, second, surprisingly stable social positions among the wealthiest between 1914 and 1963, despite radical changes in society and a dramatic decline in mean wealth.

Keywords:

• wealth
• affluent groups
• bourgeoisie
• twentieth century
• Sweden
• class
• social stratification
• database on wealth holding

Notes

¹Söderberg, Tom, Två sekel svensk medelklass. Stockholm: Bonniers 1972, 318–352; Ericsson, Tom, A silent class: The lower middle class in Sweden, in The Scandinavian Middle Classes, 1840–1940, Ed. T. Ericsson, J. Fink and J. E. Myhre. Oslo: Unipub forlag/Oslo Academic Press 2004, 19.

²See, e.g., Nordin, Svante, Får jag be om räkningen? När den svenska bildningsborgerligheten tackade för sig, in Eliterna som abdikerade, Ed. A. Björnsson and P. Luthersson. Stockholm: Carlssons 1998.

³Glete, Jan, Ägande och industriell omvandling. Ävgargrupper, skogsindustri, verkstadsindustri 1850–1950, Stockholm: SNS 1987; Glete, Jan, Entrepreneurs and social elites: Some reflections on the case of Sweden, in Microfoundations of Economic Growth: A Schumpeterian Perspective, Ed. G. Eliasson and C. Green. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan 1998.

⁴Husz, Orsi, Privatekonomin och den borgerliga medelklassens identitetskris 1920–1970, Fronesis. Tema: Borgerlighet Nr 24 2007, 116–130.

⁵Lagercrantz, Olof, Min första krets. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand 1982, 84–85.

⁶Husz, Privatekonomin, 126–127.

⁷Selander, Sten, ‘Modernt’. Lekmannapredikningar i radio. Stockholm: Bonniers 1932, 78; see also Ericson, Tom, J. Fink and J. E. Myhre (eds), The Scandinavian Middle Classes 1840–1940. Oslo: Unipub forlag/Oslo Academic Press 2004, 19; Nordin, Får jag be om räkningen?

⁸Therborn, Göran, Borgarklass och byråkrati i Sverige: anteckningar om en solskenshistoria. Lund: Arkiv 1989, 138, 140.

⁹See, e.g., Kocka, Jürgen, and Allan Mitchell (eds), Bourgeois Society in Nineteenth Century Europe. Oxford: Berg 1993; Kocka, Jürgen, Industrial Culture and Bourgeois Society. New York: Berghahn Books 1999; Ericsson et al., Scandinavian Middle Classes.

¹⁰Every person owning capital assets in excess of 10,000 SEK (in 1914), 50,000 SEK (in 1928) and 80,000 SEK (in 1963) – after deductions for debts – had to pay a wealth tax irrespective of the yield of the assets. The income derived from this capital was subject to the separate income taxation. Taxable property included almost all kind of assets: land and buildings, stocks, debentures and bonds, bank deposits and other holdings. Jewellery, cars and yachts were treated as taxable capital assets. Exceptions were made for furniture and other domestic equipment in use by the taxpayer and his or her family, and for private collections of art and books. The national wealth tax was for husband and wife, based on their combined property. The property of minors (below 21 years) living with their parents was considered for wealth tax purposes as the property of the parents (Wolcker, Erik von, De nya skattelagarna af den 28 oktober 1910 med ävndringar till och med 1913. Stockholm: A.V. Carlssons bokförlag 1913. Sköld, Per Edvin, Taxeringshandbok. Stockholm: Tidens Förlag 1929; Hur skatterna beröknas. Stockholm: Skattebetalarnas förening 1962; Taxes in Sweden. Stockholm: Skattebetalarnas förening 1961).

¹¹Roine, Jesper, and Waldenström, Daniel, Svenska toppinkomsters utveckling 1903–2004, Ekonomisk Debatt vol. 7, 2006:8, 25–26. They compare data on tax evasion from the 1990s with data from 1930–1948 in Bentzel, Ragnar, Inkomstfördelningen i Sverige. Stockholm: Industriens utredningsinstitut 1952. Cf. also Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press 1956/1967, 389.

¹²We adjusted the titles where it was possible. After systematically double-checking names with the initial ‘M’ for every cross-section year in various other directories such as Vem är det? (Who is it?), Vem är vem? (Who is who?) and Statskalendern (the official yearbook of the state), we could establish that inadequacies in the titles seem to be very small in relation to the whole database.

¹³Kocka and Mitchell, Bourgeois Society; Kocka, Industrial Culture.

¹⁴Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge [1979/1984] 1994, 114–125.

¹⁵In this fraction we find many of those ‘functionaries and administrators’ who, according to James Burnham in the The Managerial Revolution (New York: John Day 1941), were supposed to be a new ruling class in the future administrative society.

¹⁶We have modified the occupation classification carried out by Göran Therborn (Om klasserna i Sverige 1930–1970. Lund: Zenit särtryck 1973) so as to include the fractions discussed by Bourdieu. For a fuller account, see Gustavsson, Martin, Makt och konstsmak. Stockholm: Ekonomisk-historiska institutionen 2002, 19–27, 393–397.

¹⁷Between an economic fraction of the middle classes (small dealers, shopkeepers) and a cultural fraction (elementary school teachers, etc.), a fraction of private administration (cashiers, etc.), a fraction of professionals (nurses, technicians) and a fraction of public administration (subordinate officials, etc.) are to be found.

¹⁸The classification in Figure 1 exhibits some similarities with the system, Nordisk yrkesklassificering (NYK) which in turn draws on the international occupation classification scheme, ISCO-58. This is a “horizontal” classification that brings together, e.g., professors and school teachers into one group (the cultural fraction in our analysis). Similarly, business executives and shop owners are joined into another group (the economic fraction). See Tidsserie från FoB (1965–1990), Statistics Sweden (SCB), http://www.scb.se/templates/Standard–78584.asp (accessed 11 November 2008).

¹⁹Since the Directory of Wealth does not report the first name of individuals (only initials), it is not possible to perform a gender analysis of the material taken as a whole.

²⁰ Statistisk årsbok för Stockholms stad 1934, 29.

²¹‘Wholesale dealers’ and ‘managing directors’ are, in consequence, also located close to each other in Figure 2. Cf. Carlsson, Sten, Den sociala omgrupperingen i Sverige efter 1866, Samhälle och Riksdag. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1966, 82, 85.

²²Wallis, J. J., and D. C. North, Measuring the transaction sector in the American economy, in Long-term Factors in American Economic Growth, Ed. S. L. Engerman and R. E. Gallman. Chicago, IL/London: University of Chicago Press 1988, 95–161; Dezalay, Yves, and Bryant G. Garth, Dealing in Virtue: International Commercial Arbitration and the Construction of a Transnational Legal Order. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press 1996.

²³Bomgren, Gunnar, Några statistiska uppgifter om advokaternas arbetsmöjligheter, Tidskrift för Sveriges advokatsamfund 1938, 39. Some business lawyers earned very high fees (see, e.g., Anér, Josef, Kring 8 decennier. Stockholm: Bonniers 1969, 133).

²⁴Spånt, Roland, Den svenska inkomstfördelningens utveckling 1920–1976. Ekonomidepartementet Ds E 1979:4. Stockholm 1979, 18–23.

²⁵Gustafsson, Björn, and Mats Johansson, Step Toward Equality: How and Why Income Inequality in Urban Sweden Changed during the Period 1925–1958, European Review of Economic History, vol. 7, 2003: 91–111.

²⁶Roine, Jesper, and Daniel Waldenström, The Evolution of Top Incomes in an Egalitarian Society: Sweden, 1903-2004. SSE/EFI Working Paper in Economics and Finance No. 625. Stockholm 2006.

²⁷Bentzel, Inkomstfördelningen, 50–56, 127–134; Östlind, Anders, Industriens finansiering 1924–1941, Ekonomisk Revy, vol. 1, 1944: 1; Pokorny, C. R., Är det farligt att äga aktier?, Ekonomisk Revy, vol. 7, 1950: 2, 125. On shareholding, see Quensel, C. E., Inkomst- och förmögenhetsundersökningarna i 1945 års folkräkning, Ekonomisk Revy, vol. 8, 1951: 5, 448–450.

²⁸On the fall in bond yields, see Pokorny, Är det farligt att äga aktier?, 127.

²⁹Nyberg, Bengt, and Magnus Pontin, En aktieplacering 1930–1964, Ekonomisk Revy, vol. 23, 1966: 1, 41–44.

³⁰Beije, Rupert, Konsten att placera och förvalta pengar. Stockholm: Fritzes 1941, 87.

³¹SOU 1965: 72 Aktievinsters beskattning: betänkande av Aktievinstutredningen. Stockholm 1965, 324.

³²Spånt, Roland, Wealth distribution in Sweden, 1920–1983, in International Comparisons of the Distribution of Household Wealth, Ed. E. N. Wolff. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1987, 56.

³³Bentzel, Inkomstfördelningen; Söderberg, John Wage Differentials; Brenner, Y. S., Hartmut Kaelble and Mark Thomas (eds), Income Distribution in Historical Perspective. Cambridge/Paris: Cambridge University Press/Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme 1991, 76–95.

³⁴SOU 1936:18 Undersökningar rörande det samlade skattetrycket i Sverige och utlandet, 69.

³⁵Sandström, K. G. A., Om förmögenhetsskatt samt beskattning av inkomst av kapital. Stockholm: Norstedts 1945; SOU 1951:51 1949 års skatteutredning. Betänkande angående den statliga direkta beskattningen.

³⁶SOU 1951:51, 229; Sunt Förnuft 1952 mars, 43.