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ABSTRACT
Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal’s solution to global inequality was to move Beyond the Welfare State (1960) and national boundaries to create a ‘welfare world.’ Built on a vision to globalize or scale-up the Swedish approach, Myrdal’s proposal was rejected by both international technocrats and impoverished nations. This article examines the Swedish intellectual tradition on inequality, considering both how it contributed to the emergence of the Swedish welfare state and later to Myrdal’s welfare world. By examining the roots of Myrdal’s proposal, as well as its international reception, this article contributes to several different strands of intellectual history. First, it illustrates how dissonance about a concept such as inequality can emerge when its use is context dependent. Second, the paper explores how an idea that is purported to be international in nature can fail to make sense or ‘travel’ in the international realm, e.g. the ‘non-globalization’ of a concept.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Gerardo Serra, Niels Brimnes, Christian Olaf Christiansen and the participants of the Towards a Global Intellectual History of An Unequal World conference for their very helpful comments and suggestions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Leppänen, “Sven Backlund,” 5.
2 For a brief overview of comparative global intellectual history, see Moyn and Sartori, “Approaches to Global Intellectual History.”
3 Janson, “Things Are Different Elsewhere.”
4 Christiansen and Lindbjerg Guichon, “The Janus-face of ‘Interdependence,’” 2. On a similar theme, in this issue, see also Serra, “Crossed Crocodiles.”
5 Pocock, “On the Unglobality of Contexts,” 1. See also, López, “The Quest for the Global.”
6 Examples would include Marxism, Post-Marxism, Feminism, and Neo-colonialism.
7 Thompson, The Politics of Inequality.
8 Slobodian, Globalists, 4–5.
9 Morey and Martin, “Introduction,” 127.
10 Morey and Martin, “Introduction.” See also Nakhimovsky, “An International Dilemma;” Reid-Henry, “From Welfare World to Global Poverty;” and Moyn, “Welfare World.”
11 López, “The Quest for the Global,” 158.
12 Wicksell, “A New Principle of Just Taxation,” 88.
13 Wicksell, “Remarks on the Chief Cause of Social Misfortunes,” 86.
14 Wicksell translated in Uhr, “Wicksell on Fiscal Reform,” 367.
15 Wicksell, “A New Principle of Just Taxation,” 77.
16 Wicksell, “Socialiststaten och Nutidssamhället,” 9–10.
17 Wicksell quoted in Gardlund, The Life of Knut Wicksell, 210.
18 Myrdal, Against the Stream, 5.
19 Lindahl, “Knut Wicksell,” 267.
20 Myrdal, The Essential Gunnar Myrdal, 7 and 15.
21 Myrdal, The Political Element, 176–7.
22 Ibid., 156. Although Wicksell was in deep sympathy with the Social Democrats’ policy positions, he preferred the role of ‘a radical taskmaster untrammeled by party ties.’ Gardlund, The Life of Knut Wicksell, 307.
23 Myrdal, The Political Element.
24 Myrdal quoted in Angresano, The Political Economy of Gunnar Myrdal, 46.
25 Ibid., 55.
26 Myrdal, Beyond the Welfare State, 39 and 44.
27 On the reactions to Kris, a mix of eugenics and radical social reform policies, see the following: Angresano, The Political Economy of Gunnar Myrdal; Barber, Gunnar Myrdal; Cherrier, “Gunnar Myrdal and the Scientific Way;” and Gilman, “The Myrdals’ Eugenicist Roots.”
28 Myrdal, Against the Stream, 9.
29 Leppänen, “Sven Backlund,” 5.
30 Myrdal, International Economy, 82.
31 Myrdal, American Dilemma.
32 Martin, “Gunnar Myrdal and the Failed Promises.”
33 Moyn, “Welfare World,” 178,
34 Myrdal, Against the Stream, 41. Nakhimovsky explores a similar critique by Myrdal – of the misleading dichotomous positioning of planning versus market economics in much of neoclassical economics. Nakhimovsky, “An International Dilemma,” 186–7.
35 Ibid., 10.
36 Myrdal, Rich Lands and Poor, 122–3.
37 Slobodian, Globalists, 215; Martin, “Gunnar Myrdal and the Failed Promises.”
38 Myrdal, Against the Stream, 13.
39 Myrdal quoted in Barber, Gunnar Myrdal, 12. Myrdal, Rich Lands and Poor, 12.
40 These are well documented in Benjamin Siegel’s recent revisitation of the book and its impact; he explains ‘the niceties of Scandinavian democratic socialism would not do in India, where only peasant insurrection would fix the indignities of caste, class, and colonialism’s entrenchment of the two.’ Siegel, “Asian Drama Revisited,” 199.
41 Dekker, Jan Tinbergen, 363.
42 Myrdal, Against the Stream, 103.
43 Myrdal, Beyond the Welfare State.
44 Myrdal, Against the Stream, 310.
45 Consider, for example, Sweden’s role as arbiter of the world’s most prestigious science awards – the Nobel Prize.
46 Leppänen, “Sven Backlund,” 5.
47 Myrdal, Against the Stream, 46.
48 Myrdal, Beyond the Welfare State, 162.
49 Ibid., 62.
50 Myrdal quoted in Angresano, The Political Economy of Gunnar Myrdal, 165.
51 Myrdal, Beyond the Welfare State, 227.
52 Sen, Poverty and Famines.
53 Myrdal, Rich Lands and Poor, 62.
54 Ibid., 50.
55 Ibid., 38.
56 Myrdal, Against the Stream, 34. Elsewhere, Myrdal claimed, ‘it is a still largely unsolved sociological problem why and how it happened that this shining idealistic vision of the dignity of the individual human being and of his basic right to equality of opportunity originated and maintained its strength through untold centuries of blatant inequality and oppression … the surprising thing is not that our society has all the time tolerated so much economic inequality but that through the ages people have kept a sanctuary in their minds for such a high-pitched ideal as is expressed by the equality doctrine.’ Myrdal, Rich Lands and Poor, 112 and 114.
57 Indeed, ‘the problem of equality concerns all social relationships in the broadest sense’ and not only because of our own self-interest but because of the shared values of humankind are equality and justice.’ Myrdal, Against the Stream, 14.
58 Moyn, “Welfare World.”
59 Myrdal, The Essential Gunnar Myrdal, 6.
60 ‘The essential element of this ideal, as we commonly understand it when it is related to social relations within one country, is the loosening of social rigidities which prevent individuals from choosing freely the conditions of their work and life. The economy is not integrated unless all avenues are open to everybody and the renumerations paid for productive services are equal, regardless of racial, social, and cultural differences.’ Myrdal quoted in Barber, Gunnar Myrdal, 111.
61 Reid-Henry, “From Welfare World to Global Poverty.”
62 Myrdal, Against the Stream, 47 and 167–8.
63 Moyn, “On the Nonglobalization of Ideas,” 188.
64 Reid-Henry, “From Welfare World to Global Poverty,” 208.
65 Mead, “The Underdeveloped and the Overdeveloped.”
66 Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism, xix; see also Maung, “The Burmese Way.”
67 Currie, “Myrdal on South Asia,” 166. Myrdal’s colleague, Jan Tinbergen, another European technocrat of the international world order, was similarly described. Tinbergen’s ‘vision of development economics was in crucial ways Dutch,’ a worldview he was unable to escape. Dekker, Jan Tinbergen, 365.
68 Boulding, “Reviewed Works: Beyond the Welfare State.”
69 Galbraith, “Unto Everyone.”
70 Colm, “Reviewed Works,” 288.
71 Ibid., 288.
72 Mitchell, Rule of Experts.
73 Myrdal, “The Equality Issue.”
74 Slobodian, Globalists, 265.
75 Ibid., 159.
76 See Cook, “Efficiently Unequal,” in this issue.
77 Slobodian, Globalists, 265.
78 E.g., Maung, “The Burmese Way,” Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism, Nair, “Asian Drama: A Critique.”
79 Myrdal, Asian Drama. See Nair, “Asian Drama, A Critique,” 450–5.
80 Dekker, Jan Tinbergen, 363.
81 Cooper, “Concluding Reflections,” 286.
82 Slobodian, Globalists, 269.