Introduction

In the beginning of the 1970s the whole world flocked to Stockholm to discover the secrets of The Swedish Model...the middle way between Communism and Capitalism. But nowadays it seems only economic historians show any interest in the model. Yet it was never what it seemed. What you saw was not what you got but whatever you wanted...wysiwoolly rather than wysiwyg. The Swedish Model was all things to all men.

Now after two decades of hard sell from the Chicago boys and their Reaganomics and Thatcherisms the whole subject is overlaid with disinformation and false analogies.

Lennart Erixon is just the guide we need to help us avoid the analytical pitfalls and see beyond the smoke. Erixon is an economist but thinks and writes like an economic historian, remaining true to the English tradition of political economy. He worries about his sources and has the courtesy...instilled into several generations of Swedish academic economists by Gunnar Myrdal...of discriminating between fact, opinion and premise.

Erixon sees himself as a historian first and a historian of 'affaires economiques' second...unlike many of his American cousins who view economic history as a department of public relations and political advertising.

The task Erixon has set himself is to penetrate the web of ideology and political intrigue that has distorted debate about the Swedish Model and to get at the reality behind the 'golden age' of his title which begins after the Hitler War in 1945 and ends with the oil crisis of 1973. To develop an analytical framework for his study Erixon takes us back to the 18th century.