The Wage-earner Fund Debate - a Hegemonic Turning-point : A Marxist Analysis

The aim of the dissertation is twofold. The primary aim is to explain how the wage-earner funds could change the way they did, from the original proposal 1975 to the carried through 1983. The second is to show the relevans of Marxist analysis today, through the application of Marxist theory on the wage-earner funds issue. A discourse analyses is carried through to show the arguments and positions taken by key actors during the wage-earner funds struggle. One important finding is that the wage-earner funds struggle was what I designate a hegemonic turning-point in the Swedish post war history. Until and including the raising of the fund issue the Swedish labour movement had for decades gradually moved their positions forwards vis-a-vis the bourgeois in wide meaning. The bourgeois won the fund struggle and has ever since step by step forced the labour movement on the defense. The wage-earner funds struggle then meant a very important change of the balance between the organized class forces. Previous works on the wage-earner funds have a strong emphasis on the political level in trying to explain the issue. The dissertation shows that although this is an important factor, it has to be related to others. In accordande with a structuralist influenced Marxist perspective the interrelation of economical, political, cultural and ideological factors has to be evaluated in the analysis of the issue. The agenda on the political level needs to be related to processes in the economy. In other words changes in the economic base strongly influenced what was taking place in the political/cultural/ideological domains. Marxism has for a long period been the objective for deconstruction and dissolution. Through the concrete analysis of the fund struggle the dissertation shows that Marxist theory is still relevant. The dissertation stresses that a relevant Marxism today is not the same as the classical marxism that culminated during the 1970’s. But there is fundamental parts, core, centrality, that can be built upon for a modern Marxism that is not ending up at the Post-marxism that dissolves and gives up still relevant foundations