Benny Carlson

Wagner's Legacy in America : Re-opening Farnam's Inquiry

The continual interaction between economic change and economic policies designed to manage or guide this change seldom finds such dramatic expression as when one type of economy replaces another, e. g., when the industrial economy replaces the agrarian or is in turn supplanted by the “post-industrial” economy.Thus, when the American economy was in the thick of its industrial revolution during the decades around the turn of this century, it was subjected to a series of government interventions the lowest common denominator of which has been summarized in the title of a book by Morton Keller, Regulating a New Economy (1996). In the United States as in all other countries, these interventions consisted of a glorious jumble of attempts to solve problems as they arose, of “bespoke jobs” in response to diverse economic interests, and of sundry ideologically-motivated efforts to move events in particular directions. (Less)

Wagner's Swedish Students: Precursors of the Middle Way?

During the period 1871–1918, Sweden was under the in.uence, in many respects, of intellectual currents emanating from the German Empire. On the plane of economic policy many Swedish social scientists and public debaters were in.uenced by German Kathedersozialismus and state socialism. In Sweden, as in other countries, this heritage has long been tucked out of view in historical writings, perhaps because there was not much to boast about after the defeat of the “German model” in the First World War.1 Interest has begun to awaken in recent years, however. Leading economists such as Gustav von Schmoller and Adolph Wagner have attracted attention (see e.g., Backhaus 1997) and their in.uence in the United States has been examined (Carlson 1999, Rodgers 1998, and Senn 1997). In Sweden, too, interest in German Kathedersozialismus and state socialism is rising with respect to its in.uence on social scientists (Wisselgren 2000) and (social democratic) politicians (Karlsson 2001).

Eli Heckscher and Natural Monopoly: The Nightmare that Never Came True

In Eli F. Heckschers conception of the world, what he called “distributary systems” (ledningssystem) played a dangerously crucial role. He used this term to denote the means of transport, communications and power transmission, that is, in substance those activities which are commonly termed natural monopolies. Until the 1920s he believed that these monopolies could be held in check by potential competition and technological change. During the 1930s and 1940s he feared that the state would seize control of the distributary systems and develop a power unparalleled in history. He was afraid that the state in fact would be able to strangle technological progress and so eliminate any change that might conceivably threaten its power. Heckschers nightmare was one of total dictatorship and utter stagnation. (Less)

Gösta Bagge's American Lessons

Abstract Gosta Bagge, then 21 years of age, took his fil.kand. (first degree) examination at Uppsala University in January 1904. He travelled to the United States in the autumn of the same year to undertake research studies in political economy, history and political science at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. That the choice fell on Johns Hopkins was due primarily to his having a sister who lived in the city.1

Lindahl, Dynamics and Death

Fifty years have passed since the Stockholm School of economic thought was carried to the font by Bertil Ohlin. As was fitting, the anniversary was celebrated with a conference in Stockholm to which prominent economists made pilgrimage from near and far. Even before this, an extra fine commemorative gift had been proffered in Lund, the very city from which such bitter criticism had once upon a time been directed at the Stockholm School, in the form of a doctoral dissertation on Erik Lindahl och Stockholmsskolans dynamiska metod (Erik Lindahl and the Dynamic Method of the Stockholm School) (Lund Economic Studies 39, 1987), written by Jan Petersson.

Ingvar Svennilson on economic planning in war and peace

During the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy in the mid-1940s, Sweden experienced a heated debate on economic planning in which a number of Swedens leading economists were involved. ...

Ohlin on the Great Depression : Ten Newspaper Articles 1929–1935

Bertil Ohlin was a most active commentator on current economic events in the interwar period, combining his academic work with a journalistic output of an impressive scale. He published more than a thousand newspaper articles in the 1920s and 1930s, more than any other professor in economics in Sweden. Here we have collected 10 articles by Ohlin, translated from Swedish and originally published in Stockholms-Tidningen, to trace the evolution of his thinking during the Great Depression of the 1930s. These articles, spanning roughly half a decade, bring out his response to the stock market crisis in New York in 1929, his views on monetary policy in 1931, on fiscal policy and public works in 1932, his reaction to Keynes’ ideas in 1932 and 1933 and to Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933, and, finally, his stand against state socialism in 1935. At the beginning of the depression, Ohlin was quite optimistic in his outlook. But as the downturn in the world economy deepened, his optimism waned. He dealt with proposals for bringing the Swedish economy out of the depression, and reported positively on the policy views of Keynes. At an early stage, he recommended expansionary fiscal and monetary policies including public works. This approach permeated the contributions of the young generation of Swedish economists arising in the 1930s, eventually forming the Stockholm School of Economics. He was critical of passive Manchester liberalism, ‘folded-arms evangelism’ as well of socialism while promoting his own brand of ‘active social liberalism’. (Less)

American ethnic history: Themes and perspectives

Over the last 15 years, Jef Huysmans has established himself as one of the most influential theorists of the linkages between migration and security. In this provocative and tightly argued book, he develops many of the themes of his earlier contributions and applies them to analyse the dynamics of EU cooperation on immigration and asylum. The central premise of the book, familiar to those who have followed work on the ‘securitisation’ of migration, is that migration and asylum issues in Europe have been increasingly constructed in terms of security threats. Huysmans breaks down this claim into three main conceptual steps. First, he argues that the process of securitisation involves integrating migration issues into a broader security ‘domain’. This does not necessarily imply singling out migration or groups of migrants as explicit security threats, but can involve invoking more subtle and implied linkages between tangentially related phenomena (terrorism and asylum, criminality and migration), which are the source of more nebulous forms of anxiety or ‘unease’. These groupings serve to normalise the application of securitarian discourses and practices to the area of migration. Huysmans shows how this more subtle form of securitisation has occurred in the context of the European ‘internal security field’, which groups together problems of crime, counter-terrorism, and migration and asylum, and normalises their treatment as part of a single domain. Huysmans’ nuanced account provides a welcome corrective to some of the more blanket claims of accounts of securitisation. The second claim is that these securitising strategies, or what he calls ‘modulations’, are not just discursive but involve a highly technocratic element. Securitarian practices and technologies do not simply flow from, or reflect, discursive framings of the issues; rather, the application of such techniques can itself shape how migration issues are treated. Huysmans sets out a rigorous conceptual framework for observing these technocratic drivers of securitisation, which draws on Foucault’s typology of different techniques of government (sovereignty, discipline and governmentality). The book provides a fascinating account of how such dynamics have evolved in EU cooperation on immigration and asylum. This type of focus on organisational practices and expert knowledge is often missing from EU political science analyses. As Huysmans points out, the Foucauldian framework also avoids the pitfalls of some of the more normative debates on state/EU legitimacy, offering a way of observing techniques of government without presupposing the state as the principal organising device or sole locus of normative authority. The third central claim is that this type of securitisation has ramifications not just for migration policies and practices, but also for our ‘imaginations of the political’. Beliefs about the appropriate way of addressing migration can influence expectations about appropriate forms of state intervention and state society relations. This three-step argument offers a sophisticated and compelling account of securitisation. However, it did raise a number of questions, of which I shall flag two. First, Huysmans’ more nuanced account of securitisation hints at the existence of other, non-securitarian drivers of migration policy. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 34, No. 8, November 2008, pp. 1345 1369

How did the great Swedish economists consider their role in public debate? : The views of Knut Wicksell, Gustav Cassel, Eli Heckscher, Bertil Ohlin and Gunnar Myrdal

This impressive volume centres on the relationship between Austrian and Swedish economics. Exploring themes such as capital theory, expectations, policy, market theory and the history of economic thought, this book makes for an interesting read. It will appeal across a wide range of disciplines within economics as well as the philosophy of social science.