It's soon 36 years since the first massive demonstration against "Löntagarfonder" took place the very same day as the Swedish Parliament's opening, and went from Humlegården to the Chancellor's House in the Old Town of Stockholm where a letter was delivered requesting that the government stop the "employee funds."



In a lengthy article over at the Jacobin, Kjell Östberg explains the many factors and political waves that eventually led to this, and how close Sweden almost was heading to pure socialism: Sweden’s extraordinary wave of reforms in the 1970s, an era of explosive radicalism, reveal the achievements — and the limits — of social democracy. He will show you how Sweden eventually came up with the idea of wage-earner funds. The idea was that every year, a portion of the profits of Sweden’s large and medium-sized companies, as shares, was to be transferred to funds controlled by the unions. This would be called "Löntagarfonder."

As your friendly resident adnerd, however, I just wanted to share the ads that helped get people involved. Demonstrations and grassroots engagement doesn't just spring from nowhere. Political ads are still advertising. Today we may have super PACs and Falun Gong buying tonnes of Facebook ads, while young climate activists are PRed into the press daily and onto covers of men's magazines on occasion. Back then the politically active youth made buttons, wrote pamphlets and printed up spot colour posters while the business leaders wrote opinion pieces and organized rallies.