Viking Economics by George Lakey

stimulus of the economy to counter the depression, and distributed more relief to the poor.
    More middle-class people swung to support the Labor Party, both because the Party was recruiting them more actively (through family ties to workers, for example), and because some middle-class people began to see that Labor could deliver concrete benefits for the people.
    The Labor Party’s vision of nonviolent revolution resulting in a completely socialist society remained in its manifesto until 1949, reminding the owning class that another round of militant capitalist resistance to change might lead to a more radical outcome than what they already were living with.
THE CONSENSUS EMERGES
    Not until 1965—three decades after the Basic Agreement—did the Conservative Party get a chance to govern, leading a coalition of bourgeois parties. By then the Nordic model was securely in place and the Conservatives accepted the basic changes in the rules of the game.
    This came fully home to me only when I sat in the Mathiesen living room in Skien in 1973 and watched a televised election debate among national party leaders. I commented to Berit that it hardly seemed a debate; it was almost boring. I spoke in English so her father Johannes, also watching, wouldn’t think I was trivializing his country’s politics. But Berit agreed that the major parties no longer fought over the design of the economy.
    In the debate, I heard little attraction to the command economyof the Soviet Union next door, nor to the free-market economy of the United States across the sea. Norwegians didn’t completely scorn the market. After all, a market can provide flexibility and the constant feedback and corrections that support the well-being of the whole. They thought a small stock market could be useful but needed regulation so its own excesses didn’t destroy it. The financial sector remained small, and a good deal of it was owned publicly and the rest highly regulated.
    After the bitter strikes and loss of productivity that resulted from the class struggle back in the day, the election debate I watched in the Mathiesen living room reflected industrial peace. By 1973, Norwegians seemed to have consensus on a carefully guided market, full employment, free and universal health care, free higher education, and efficient and affordable public transportation. The party spokespeople agreed on the goal of good housing for all but argued that their own party would get it faster than the other parties would. Taxes weren’t really an issue; the people knew they needed to pay high taxes to get abundant services.
    In my experience, Norwegians don’t like to talk about “the bad old days” of harsh polarization and open struggle. Most enjoy their reputation in the wider world as consensus-seekers and experts in conflict resolution. Their backstory, however, is different: they needed to fight to achieve the amount of freedom and equality they now enjoy. As Martin Luther King, Jr., observed, “Freedom is not free.”

PART II
DESIGN FOR LIVING IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES

6
MORE START-UPS THAN THE UNITED STATES: SUPPORT FOR ENTREPRENEURS, WORKERS, AND THE EQUALITY OF WOMEN
    When Berit was a teenager, she often babysat for Finn Gjaerum, an entrepreneur in her hometown of Skien. When I moved to Norway she was eager for me to meet Finn’s young family, with whom she’d gone on trips. I had a delightful time, drank a lot of coffee, and asked Finn what it was like to run his chemical import firm in Norway.
    “It’s absorbing, and satisfying,” he said. “I like to make decisions and I’m okay with the responsibility of meeting payroll. I like being my own boss. And Norwegian workers are very reliable and conscientious, so I don’t have to worry about setting and meeting deadlines.”
    Over time I realized that, even under a government usually run by the workers’ party, Norwegians recognize their entrepreneurs. Take Kjell Inge Røkke. He started out as a fisherman,