Education
Per Albin had little formal education.
Per Albin had little formal education.
A store clerk with little formal education, Hansson joined the Social Democratic Youth Association in 1903 and became editor of its weekly journal, Fram (“Forward”). As a writer (1909–17) and editor (1917) of the Social Democrat Party organ Social-Demokraten and as a member of the Riksdag (parliament) after 1918, he argued for disarmament and reduction of the armed forces. With a few brief interruptions, he served as minister of defense under Karl Hjalmar Branting (1920–25) and Rickard Sandler (1925–26) and on Branting’s death in 1925 became leader of the Social Democrat Party.
Hansson led the Social Democrats in gaining a sharp reduction of the nation’s military expenditures in 1925 but supported funds for new battleships and in 1928 and 1932 opposed his party’s plan of total disarmament. After serving on the government’s Public Debt Commission (1929–32), he became prime minister in 1932 and effected with the Farmers’ Party an agreement that enabled passage of his administration’s strong anti-depression program.
Hansson’s administration implemented measures for public-works construction, support for agriculture, and financial expansion, and later for unemployment insurance (1934). He also introduced other new social programs, including old-age pensions (1935, 1937). By 1936 wages had reached their pre-depression level, and unemployment dipped sharply by the end of the decade. The active social policies were important elements in the realization of the folkhem (“people’s home”), the concept of the role of government that Hansson put forward at the opening of the Social Democratic congress in 1928.
After 1936 Hansson sponsored an expansion of Sweden’s defenses, refused Germany’s offer of a nonaggression pact, and worked for cooperative security arrangements among the Scandinavian countries. With the outbreak of the Winter War between Soviet Russia and Finland in December 1939, he formed a coalition government that lasted for the duration of World War II and maintained Sweden’s neutrality.
During World War II, in which Sweden maintained a policy of neutrality, he presided over a government of unity that included all major parties in the Riksdag. Forging the Social Democratic grip on Swedish politics that would last throughout the century, Hansson left an astounding legacy on his party as well as creating the "Swedish model" that remains largely intact to date, including a strict policy of neutrality, a wide-stretching welfare state through parliamentary legislation, and reformist social corporatism rather than Marxist nationalization of the means of production. Following the war, Hansson formed a Social Democratic cabinet enjoying absolute majority in the Riksdag before succumbing to a heart attack on his way home from work late at night on October 6, 1946.
Per Albin Hansson was a social corporatist which implies a social partnership between between capital and labour interest groups as well as between the market economy and state interventionism that is considered a compromise to regulate conflict between capital and labour by mandating them to engage in mutual consultations that are mediated by the government. At first he had strictly anti-militarist views, but then social corporatism took over because it meant stable armed forces in order to secure neutrality during WWII.
He introduced the concept of Folkhemmet ("The People's home") saying that Sweden should become more like a "good home", this being marked by equality and mutual understanding. Important elements of such a policy are active social measures. "The People's home" became known as the Swedish welfare state model.
