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120 Int'l Lab. Rev. 303 (1981)
Collective Asset Formation through Wage-Earner Funds

handle is hein.journals/intlr120 and id is 317 raw text is: International Labour Review, Vol. 120, No. 3, May-June 1981 Collective asset formation through wage-earner funds Rudolf MEIDNER° When a small group of researchers appointed by the Confederation of Swedish Trade Unions (LO) published a report on wage-earner funds in August 1975,' Swedish public opinion reacted with surprise. The group had suggested a scheme for compulsory profit sharing which would cover all firms of more than a certain size and envisaged the formation of collec- tively owned funds financed by such profits and administered by employees and their organisations. No single element of the scheme was really new. Profit sharing had been proposed by liberals for many decades and a small number of such schemes already existed in Sweden, for instance in some of the larger commercial banks. The idea of collective funds, moreover, could not be considered all that odd in a country with a long experience of large and growing pension funds administered jointly by unions, employers and the Government. Still, the idea of combining profit sharing with the collective ownership of stock capital in private firms, which was what the report proposed, aroused criticism and alarm in some quarters. Many observers asked themselves whether the proposal signalled a deliberate departure from the pragmatic and reformist approach traditionally adopted by the Swedish labour movement, or whether it was simply the unauthorised brainchild of a group of militant intellectuals. Should it be interpreted as a change of course towards an economy dominated by the unions, or simply as a further development of the kind of welfare society that has come to be known as the Swedish model? The question can only be answered after a careful analysis of the historical background to the suggested scheme and of the motives that inspired it. But before undertaking this I will briefly sketch the interna- tional context, for Swedish ideas in this field should not be considered in *The author, formerly a director of the Research Department of the Confederation of Swedish Trade Unions (LO), is now doing research in the field of manpower policy at the Swedish Centre for Working Life (Arbetslivscentrum) in Stockholm and at the Science Centre (Wissenschaftszentrum) in Berlin (West). Copyright © International Labour Organisation 1981

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