NCJ Number
142409
Date Published
1992
Length
272 pages
Annotation
This is a socio-historical dissertation about the controlling devices that were developed over time to regulate and control the propertyless as well as masterless Swedish population.
Abstract
At various stages in the development of Sweden's political economy, in accordance with labor market conditions, laborers have been to varying degrees in demand or out of demand for those in power. In earlier times when there was a shortage of workers, powerless groups were exploited as slaves or serfs; later they comprised a bonded agricultural work force, a forced soldiery, or a compulsory public work force imposed by law. Labor regulations and other ideological forms of expression reflected as well as reinforced the supremacy of the needs of the crown, the military, and private interests for the limited supply of laborers. Thus, the marked general scarcity of labor power was the basis for forcibly incorporating individuals into the labor market. During most of the 19th Century in Sweden, the key transitional era in the consolidation of industrial capitalism, large numbers of the laboring poor could not be profitably absorbed into the active work force. Instead, they constituted a burden and were perceived by the ruling classes as a potentially threatening mass. The central theme of this study is the relationship between the existence of a population who would not or could not be absorbed into the labor market at a specific time and the regulatory devices that were developed by the powerful to control them. The status of being unemployed made the propertyless person vulnerable to coercive state intervention. Among the interventions was penal servitude, whereby those who could not be integrated into existing productive relationships were forcibly institutionalized under various formats of public work. A 124-item bibliography and footnotes