Industrialisering av alvar: Studier kring svensk vattenkraftutbyggnad 1900-1918 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Industrialisering av älvar: Studier kring svensk vattenkraftutbyggnad 1900–1918* Arne KaiJser (bio) Industrialisering av älvar: Studier kring svensk vattenkraftutbyggnad 1900–1918. By Eva Jakobsson. Gothenburg, Sweden: Avhandlingar från historiska institutionen i Göteborg, 1996. Pp. 302; illustrations, tables, appendices, notes, bibliography, English summary. The English translation of the title of Eva Jakobsson’s book is “The industrialization of rivers.” The author argues that when the emerging power companies in the beginning of this century built power stations and dams to harness hydropower, they fundamentally transformed the character of the Swedish rivers. The dams made it possible to control the water flow to adjust to variations in the electricity demand in distant industries and towns. This management of water flows to regulate available water resources is the essence of an “industrialized river.” Jakobsson’s aim is to analyze the preconditions for, and the conflicts over, this fundamental transformation of Swedish rivers. Her approach has been inspired both by environmental historians such as Theodor Steinberg and Donald Worster and by historians of technology such as Thomas P. Hughes. Worster has pointed out that “it is not ‘man’ who has achieved mastery of western American rivers, but some men, while the rest of us have looked on in passive wonder” (Under Western Skies: Nature and History in the American West [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992], p. 73). More or less the same holds for Sweden, even if some of the rest actively resisted the development taking place. Jakobsson’s starting point is to analyze the actions of a small group of men, whom she calls the hydropower developers. [End Page 569] Among these she identifies seven key actors: five were civil engineers, and the others were lawyers specializing in water legislation. These magnificent seven were active in different domains—commercial, technical, and political. In particular, they played leading roles in the establishment of the Swedish power industry, which came to be dominated by one state-owned company (the first of its kind in the world) and a handful of private companies in which municipalities had substantial shares. One of Jakobsson’s assertions is that the organizational structure of the Swedish power industry is an expression of what has been called “organized capitalism.” The basic reason for public involvement in the power sector was to promote industrial development by providing cheap electricity to industry. This contrasted with Norway, for example, where public power companies were established for supplying the general public, while industries had to build their own power plants. Using Hughes’s terminology, Jakobsson argues that the prevailing water legislation, designed for the needs of an agrarian society, was the major reverse salient for the emerging hydro-based electricity system in the beginning of this century. This legislation was based on riparianism and the principle of “natural flow,” which prevented disturbances of the natural flow of rivers. According to a special rights institute, the kungsådran (“king’s vein”), a third of the water in a river should always be allowed to flow freely, and dams across water courses were therefore forbidden. The hydropower developers realized at an early stage the necessity of changing this legislation, and several of them became members of parliament and experts in governmental commissions on water legislation. After two decades of investigations and political debates, a new water law was passed in 1918, which corresponded to the power industry’s wishes. The new law included the principle of “reasonable use,” which implied that a hydropower project should be allowed if the benefit could be shown to be three times greater than the damage to agricultural lands. Jakobsson focuses on more than the few men playing key roles in the transformation of Swedish rivers. By looking at a local conflict, she also studies some who opposed it. From 1899 onward, a provisional water act allowed the building of dams across rivers in special cases. In 1906 the Gullspšang power company applied to the government for permission to build a dam and to regulate the water level in Lake Skagern. The application, however, was vigorously opposed by most of the 475 riparians around the lake, and what followed was a ten-year battle, which primarily took...