National Economics in Sweden

Abstract

Political economy in countries outside Britain and France in the early nineteenth century has often been depicted in terms of reception – or non-reception – of Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say. This has been unfortunate, since it has hindered historical understanding of the development of European economic discourse. In Sweden during the first half of the nineteenth century we can discern the development of a national economics that is certainly not just a strict emulation of Smith and Say. Rather, Sweden in the first of the half of nineteenth century saw a surge in the development of a kind of “national liberalism” where liberal principles were mixed with dirigiste views. It was argued that for Sweden to develop the state must take an active role. Strategies of economic and industrial progress were formulated that presumed Sweden was a late starter in an industrial race. At the same time there was general optimism concerning the creation of economic growth and the exploitation of Sweden’s underused natural resources. All this led to a national economic discourse with special features not always easy to combine with the standard interpretation of a nineteenth-century liberal economic tradition.