ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the background to the disintegration of the historical compromise and the preconditions for alternative courses of political development in Sweden. Since labour’s disadvantage in power resources in relation to business interests is probably smaller in Sweden than in other Western nations, an analysis of political possibilities in Sweden is of general interest. The separation of governmental and economic power was the most important prerequisite for the historical compromise concluded between labour and business interests in Sweden during the latter half of the 1930s. As the 1980s began, the Swedes stood amidst the fragments of the old model, attempting to get their bearings as they searched for new solutions to serious economic problems. In Sweden as in several other countries, the factors causing immigration have in effect deprived considerable numbers of workers of the right to vote. Swedish poverty moved from the northern forests to the new multi-family housing areas in suburbs of the cities.
