International politics and cartels: Swedish forest industry cartels during the Nazi regime

Abstract

One of the reasons for fighting cartels has been that cartels can be used as a political instrument. In Nazi Germany, the government saw cartels as tools to reach political goals. Cartels were in Sweden, during the interwar period, seen as positive for long-run economic development, creating stability and making investment possible. The case studied is Swedish forest industry, which became heavily cartelised during the inter-war period. Forest industry cartels were, within forest industry, seen as a means to resist political efforts to organise production. The Swedish forest industry wanted to organise the market through private means. During the war, this became increasingly difficult, since the Nazi German state demanded a European organisation of forest industry. The Swedish government accepted reluctantly an organisation of sawmill industry. Pulp and paper were meant to be organised privately in a European cartel, led from Berlin. This article describes the Swedish government's actions vis-a-vis the German attempts to create international cartels. It also points out that the Swedish/Scandinavian cartels had a certain amount of manoeuvring space. Neither the Swedish government nor the cartels were passive policy takers.