Eugenics and the Welfare State in Sweden: The Politics of Social Margins and the Idea of a Productive Society

Author(s): Alberto Spektorowski and Elisabet Mizrachi Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Jul., 2004), pp. 333-352 Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3180732 . Accessed: 06/03/2012 01:41
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Journal Contemporary London,Thousand Oaks, CA and of HistoryCopyright? 2004 SAGEPublications, New Delhi, Vol 39(3), 333-352. ISSN0022-0094. DOI: 10.1177/0022009404044443

and Alberto Spektorowski Elisabet Mizrachi

Eugenics and the Welfare State in Sweden: The Politics of Social Margins and the Idea of a Productive Society

Between the years 1935 and 1975, 62,888 sterilizations were performed in Sweden, as the result of two laws enacted in 1934 and 1941. Swedish social democracy was a substantial agent behind the enactment of these two laws, a fact that has led to considerable debate on the international level. The bills of sterilization were firmly entrenched in Swedish social policy of the time, which advocated eugenic as well as social engineering. This raises important questions about the determining role of social democracy in the ideological buildup to and enactment of eugenics in Sweden. Undeniably, agents other than social democracy propagated eugenic ideas around this time, and Sweden is not the only country which enacted sterilization policies.' Indeed, various governments responded to changing social conditions at the turn of the century by enacting laws to prevent the reproduction of what they assumed were degenerate genes, which were seen as linked to particular social and cultural deviations from the norm. Some were due to mental illness and abnormality, which were considered hereditary.2 The Swedish case has become renowned for two reasons. First, the extent to which sterilization was performed on physically healthy individuals, which was far greater than in all other Nordic countries with similar laws.3 It was the only country with a state eugenic society, and among the Nordic countries it was the one where eugenics met with its greatest success. Second, the role played by social democracy in these policies has been widely debated. This is a critical point from a theoretical perspective, as eugenics is usually linked with
1 Of other countries which implemented similar laws, we might mention the USA, Great Britain, Japan, etc. The proposals for both mass segregation of the 'feeble-minded' under the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 and for sexual sterilization of mental defectives in the 1930s in Great Britain, are an example of these measures that may shake our views of a 'liberal' Britain in the early twentieth century. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the European theory of degeneration began to take root also in the USA. The first explicit eugenic legislation was enacted in Connecticut in 1896. Indiana, Washington and especially California followed this line. In 1913 the state of California was empowered to sterilize any inmate of any institution diagnozed as suffering from hereditary insanity. 2 For the arguments raised in the British case, see for example G. Jones, Social Darwinism and English Thought (Brighton and Atlantic Highlands, NJ 1980). 3 See, for example, G. Broberg and N. Roll-Hansen, Eugenics and the Welfare State (Michigan 1996), 108-9. This is the last and most impressive study of eugenics and welfare policy.

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conservative ideologies, with racial nazism, etc. Few have stressed the association between eugenics and socialism, especially reformist socialism. Previous researchers on the issue of eugenics in Sweden have emphasized the zeitgeist - the general spread of racial ideas. They point to the idea of superior Nordic traits as common in Swedish tradition, and compatible with revised ideas of social engineering.4Others have emphasized the role of policymakers.5Yet others have viewed the policy of sterilization from a feminist perspective, as the victims were almost exclusively women.6 Some observers focusing on the role of social democracy even drew parallels with the nazi sterilization policies of the 1930s and 1940s.7 Others, in contrast, maintained that Swedish social democratic involvement in eugenics belonged to a second wave of eugenic development which was identified with the welfare state, and therefore was deprived of any racist or national mythical connections.8 In contrast to previous studies, this article deals with the productivist reasoning of eugenics. It maintains first and foremost that although the ideological core of Swedish social democracy remained reformist and stressed the humanist or idealist elements of Marxist thought, there were strong tendencies towards a Fabian concept of industrial democracy and an exclusionist concept of social welfare, serving as a basis for social eugenics. Deprived of mythical and romantic racist features, the basic idea of eugenic socialism was to engineer a welfare community for 'the fittest' or a 'welfare eugenics', built on parameters of 'right-living' destined to exclude those individuals defined as nonproductive. In this sense this new scientific socialism was built on concepts such as efficiency, productivism and social margins. In other words, the determining factor for exclusion from the community was not race but the productive capacity of a member of society. Non-productive elements were denied not social welfare, but their right to procreate. From a political point of view we do not limit the quest for launching eugenic policies in Sweden to social democracy. The Sterilization Act of 1941 was proposed by a government of national unity, rather than a social democratic one. We do, however, stress the political role of social democracy in ensuring a broad basis of support for social policies in general, appealing to the concern for national popular quality with which members of the rightwing bloc could identify. We also suggest that when reformist socialism
4 See G. Broberg and M. Tyden, Oonskade i folkhemmet: Rashygien och sterilisering i Sverige (Stockholm 1991). 5 See A. Carlson, The Swedish Experiment in Family Policy: The Myrdals and the Inter-war Population Crisis (New Brunswick 1990) and Y. Hirdman, Att Idgga livet till rdtta: Studier i svensk folkhemspolitik (Stockholm 1989). 6 See M. Runcis, Steriliseringar i folkhemmet (Stockholm 1998). 7 See M. Zaremba 'Rasren i valfarden. Folkhemmets fortrangda arv', Dagens Nybeter (20 August 1997). 8 N. Roll-Hansen, 'Scandinavian Eugenics in the International Context' in G. Broberg and N. Roll-Hansen, Eugenics and the Welfare State. Sterilization Policy in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland (Michigan 1996), 260.

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stresses the values of productivity, social efficiency and a healthy society, it erodes the basis of legitimacy for raising social expenditure, a view attractive to the right-wing bloc.

Francis Galton, the founder of the Eugenics Education Society in 1907, coined the idea of eugenics. The basic belief was that human traits or characteristics, good or bad, were genetically transmitted. These ideas were necessary for the advocaters of sterilization, whether as a medical, political, social or economic policy. Like many of his time, Galton was inspired by Charles Darwin (On The Origin of Species, 1859 and The Descent of Man, 1871). The theories of H. Spencer and popular writers like W. Greg (Enigmas of Life, 1872) also had a far-reaching influence on social thought at the turn of the century, because they provided a scientific basis for radical ideas. For example, on the basis of biological findings they argued that the miserable conditions of urban slums were a direct result of the genetic inefficiencies of the slums' inhabitants, rather than a product of social structures. This argument was well received by the governing and industrial elite, as it relieved them of both the economic and moral responsibility for these conditions. The theory of degeneration influenced political and social thinking long after the first world war. It began in the fear of progressive decline of the 'quality' of the urban slums' inhabitants, due to their genetic inferiority. The dominant thought was marked by Darwin's assertion in The Descent of Man that
.. with savagesthe weak in body or mindare soon eliminated.... We civilizedmen ... do our utmostto check the processof elimination: build asylumsfor the imbecile... we we institutepoor laws: and our medicalmen ... save the life of everyone.... Thus the weak members societypropagate of theirkind.9

Therefore, the task of social policy according to these principles was to reverse this decline, not through health or education, but by preventing the births of future generations of feeble people.10 The question to be asked is: how did a scientific ideology that fitted the demands of capitalist efficiency, and which is usually attributed to conservative thought become part of the ideological baggage of socialist thought? Observers seldom note the potential alliance between the revolutionary, moralist and technocratic currents of socialism, and conservative nationalism. From Sorel's revolutionary syndicalism to Henry de Mann's 'planisme' these are expressions of attempts to adapt socialism to modern conditions on both the ideological and the tactical level. The problem is that when socialism turns 'national', i.e. exchanges the proletarian for a middle-class ideology, and universal reformist values for social solidarity, only between the productive parts
9 S. Trombley,The Rightto Reproduce. Historyof Coercive A Sterilization (London1988), 6. 10 Ibid.,9.

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of society can it evolve into organic nationalism or in some cases even into
fascism.1"

It is no surprise, therefore, that many of these productivist socialists embraced different forms of authoritarian nationalist organicism or fascism. Several Fabian thinkers could be mentioned in relation to this neo-socialist framework. Indeed, the Fabians' organic and scientific visions of society, their interest in eugenics and focus on the 'middle classes' rendered them closer to nationalism than to the working-class social movement. Sydney and Beatrice Webb, as well as Bernard Shaw, were the ideologues of British industrial society and of trade unionism. Their work on the minority report of the Poor Law commission helped to lay the foundation of the modern welfare state in Britain. Their socialist conviction was entirely coloured by sociological positivism. 'The essential contribution of the century to sociology has been the superimposition of the Individual by the Community as the starting point of social investigations.'12Sydney Webb's own rejection of Marxism as a source of socialist inspiration was complemented by his reliance on the ideas of Comte, Darwin and especially Thomas Henry Huxley. Huxley's main claims were that 'the higher and the more complex the organization of the social body, the more closely is the life of each member bound up with that of the whole'.13 This assumption led to the conclusion that social health was something apart from and above the interest of individuals. Social health, in the context of Fabian socialism, led to the encouragement and improvement of the healthy parts of society: namely, the productivist parts, while the sick and the parasitic should be extracted. For Sydney Webb for instance, the growth of joint stock companies represented the growth of the productivist side of society and was therefore seen as a step in the direction of socialism.14References to the army and navy as well as the Public Health Acts were also based on the argument that the increasing need for social control in a complex industrial society was bound to diminish the extent and importance of individual ownership. However, the question remains whether this socialism necessarily leads to eugenic policy and sterilization. According to J. Weeks, eugenics might have been relevant in eliminating the biologically

A Fascism: Reader's 'FascistIdeology'in W. Laqueur, Digest (New York 1979) 11 Z. Sternhell, of has 374. Sternhell pointedout that fascistideologywas the resultof the convergence an intesocialistleft. This synthesisset the intellectual rightand an anti-Marxian gralistand conservative a of basisfor the development a nationalsocialistpathto politicalmodernity, 'thirdway' between The and point is thatthis 'thirdway', adoptedby a wide MarxianSocialism Liberalism. important in was closer to politicalreactionism its rejectionof varietyof modernistsocialistintellectuals, liberalvalues, in spite of its celebrationof technologicalmodernity,nationalist democraticand for mobilizationand social integration all the productiveand healthyforces of the nation. The forces,which could be definedin ethnicterms- Jews, gypsies, 'others'were the non-productive etc. terms- 'intellectuals', etc., or in socio-economic 12 S. Webb,Socialismin England(London1987), 10. 13 Ibid., 83. 14 Ibid., 112.

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feeble, but only social policies could improve the situation of the socially disadvantaged. In his opinion, the Webbs were concerned with social rather than biological engineering.15 Stephen Trombley, in contrast, claims that the leading Fabians with their general commitment to the notion of a planned society were unequivocally attracted to the possibility of 'genetic planning'.16 We endorse the second thesis and claim that the dramatic point in eugenic development came when the biological and the social became intertwined and the distinctions between them blurred. This lent scientific legitimacy to social exclusionist policies. When eugenics became the basis of social engineering, it broadened the scope of those destined to be 'excluded'. In this sense the Fabians and other socialist intellectuals directly or indirectly linked to Fabian thought played a leading role in developing a socialist society for 'the fittest'. The publication of the first number of Sociological Papers in 1904 led to a controversy which set the tone of Fabian and other middle-class socialist debate on eugenics and sterilization in Britain. At the reading of a paper on 'Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope and Aims' at the University of London, Galton argued that the aim of eugenics 'was to represent each class or sect by its best specimens, naming as desirable eugenic qualities, health energy ability, manliness and courteous disposition'.17 Two of the Fabians at the meeting, H.G. Wells and Bernard Shaw, wanted to take the argument even further. In A Modern Utopia (1905), Wells outlined the alternatives to segregation, which would apply in the ideal socialist society. They would forbid the procreation of those judged by the state to be below the national minimum of 'physical efficiency'. Bernard Shaw added the 'positive' side and proposed a system of breeding outside marriage identical to the one practised by the nazis in their Lebensbornprogram of breeding the best 'Aryans'. Shaw was looking for ways to improve the quality of the popular material without the constraints that traditional marriage entailed. A similar problem occupying the Fabians was the problem of the 'differential birth rate'. The multiplication of the unfit was related especially to Catholics, Jews and immigrants who 'bred freely'. The way to alter the condition was, according to Beatrice Webb, to provide free medical care for the 'childbearing women of the appropriated classes'. Without these measures Britain would be heading towards race deterioration. In her Socialism and the Family (1906) she outlined the utopia that would bring order to production. One of the ideas advocated was the organization of desire, implying that love should be subordinated to 'motherhood', which was considered a 'social obligation'. An example was found in the Soviet Union of the 1930s, where 'sexual promiscuity', like all forms of self-indulgence, was seen as contradicting community ethics: 'It is a frequent cause of disease: it impairs the productivity of labor; it
15 J. Weeks, 'The Fabians and Utopia' in Ben Pimlott (ed.) Fabian Essays in Socialist Thought (London 1984), 76. 16 Trombley, op. cit., 34. 17 Ibid., 31.

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is disturbing to accurate judgment and inimical to intellectual acquisition and scientific discovery.'18 In contrast to Soviet communism, the Fabians considered themselves above class interests. Their aim was the ascendance of industrial democracy, however, composed of 'the fittest'. In this context, the Poor Law had a regressive, rather than a progressive effect, according to the Webbs, as it improved the economic situation of the inhabitants of the urban slum, thereby encouraging childbirth. Their proposal included 'surgical solutions' and provisions against reproduction of the inferior sections of the population. As noted by historian Eric Hobsbawm, these proposals formed the basis of a '.19 scientific socialism, whose protagonists 'would be "middle-class theorists" the Fabians were a pressure group, representing the interests of the Indeed, salaried middle class, the trained, impartial and scientific administrators and expert advisers.20 More importantly, Fabian socialism, while promoting a proletarian revolution, looked with disfavour on a substantial part of the working class. This point of view was not strange to those who conceived socialism as a more efficient technically-minded and more developed way to socio-economic modernization and communitarian engineering. Thus, while eugenic policies may at first seem to be more suited to conservative politics than to socialism, supporters of traditional laissez-faire, market-oriented Conservative politicians basically rejected state interventionist policy. In relation to the question of sterilization, however, they usually accepted state surgical intervention whenever it was motivated on nationalistic grounds. Productivist socialists, such as the Fabians, who attacked old socialism because it rested upon ideas such as the right to live and the right to work, which the Fabians defined as 'ideas of retrogressive rather than progressive selection',21 were among the most enthusiastic about engineering a eugenic socialist society. The question we should now address is: why and how did Swedish social democratic leaders and intellectuals think and address similar issues with criteria akin to those of the Fabians? In one sense, one of the characteristics of Swedish social democracy was that its leadership consciously strove to avoid what it called the extremes of German social democracy and English socialism: the former being the domination of theory over practice and the latter being the absence of theory.22Indeed, the most important ideologues of Swedish social democracy, Hjalmar Branting, Axel Danielsson, Frederik Sterky and later on Ernst Wigforss, despite different accents on a wide variety of issues, endorsed the aims of the international socialist movements as expressed in the
18 S. Webb and B. Webb, Soviet Communism: A New Civilization (London 1937, 2nd edn), 1057. Cited in Weeks, op. cit., 75. 19 See E. Hobsbawm, 'The Fabians Reconsidered' in Labouring Men (London 1964), 250-71. 20 Ibid. 21 See S. Ball, The Moral Aspects of Socialism (London 1896), cited by Trombley, op. cit., 37. 22 Sheri Berman, The Social Democratic Moment. Ideas and Politics in the Making of Interwar Europe (Cambridge, MA 1998), 51.

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SPD Gotha Programme while supporting reform measures, including universal suffrage. Although proclaiming their adherence to Marxism, the Swedish social democrats came to see Marxism not as a methodology for analysing societal development but as an abstract view of a better and more just world. Unlike the theoretical debates that took place within German social democracy, the Swedes were quite united in their concept that practices should be adjusted to the needs of the day. The Swedish social democrats, however, did not rule out theory like the Fabians. Yet Ernst Wigforss' idea of 'provisional utopias', which were tentative sketches of a desirable future that served as a guide to present action, and his concept of industrial democracy, were closer to Fabian reformist pragmatism than to theoretical Marxism. Moreover, this tendency cannot be severed from a basic aim which had been developing since the party's early days, which was to become the 'people's home' party rather than a purely proletariat one. Since 1890, Danielsson had been arguing that the Swedish social democrats must evolve from an ideologically limited to a working class and come close to the people.23 He claimed that they had to become a people's party and should represent what the first social democratic newspaper claimed in its title, 'The People's Will', and create the people's home which included the peasantry and the lower middle classes. Obviously, the idea of a 'people's home' was intimately related to the scientific focus that social democrats put on issues such as the quality of the population and the central function of social engineering. These became popular issues that led Swedish social democracy to some of the theoretical conclusions advanced by the Fabians. Social democracy advanced eugenic policies on the basis of technocratic, pragmatic and utilitarian ideas, rather than racist or romantic lines of reasoning, but aimed at what was termed the 'national stock'. Socialist demands for a national productivist ideology suited the demands of a welfare system for 'the fittest'. This implies an exchange of the universal reformist character of socialism for a socialism directed towards the healthy parts of society. This trend endorsed by Swedish social democrats allows us to pair them with the Fabian concept of productivist eugenics, a trend that, as has been noted, differs from what could be defined as a purely racist concept of eugenic policy. This difference is more clearly seen when examining the role played by eugenic ideologues within nazi Germany. At first glance, it seems unfeasible to pair nazism with the Swedish welfare state. While the nazis turned the idea of productivism from meritocratic to racial terms, the Swedes stressed only the productivist 'Fabian' elements of industrial society. Yet, one could ask whether the idea of eugenics could be separated from the idea of racism. As noted by Sheila Faith Weiss, German eugenics preceded and
23 Axel Danielsson, Om revolutionen i Sverige (Stockholm 1972), 28-9.

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developed independently of racism, and was not necessarily a prelude to the Holocaust.24 Werner Brill's Pedagogic im Spunnungsfeld von Eugeniks und Euthanasie (St Ingbert 1994), also establishes that from the turn of the century societal engineering and euthanasia came to be seen as valuable and even necessary by a wide range of Germans, not necessarily nazis. Indeed, until Hitler's seizure of power, German eugenics captured the interest of individuals whose allegiance spanned the breadth of the Wilhelmine and Weimar political spectrum. To illustrate the difference between the interest in social Darwinism and the purely racist approach, Paul Weindling noted that in Germany a school of racial hygiene co-existed with the school of racial anthropology.25 Although both trends relied upon similar social Darwinist sources, there was tension between them. While racial anthropologists believed in racial inequalities and opened the way to selectionist genetics based on Gaubinau's observations on race, racial hygienists kept for themselves a space of scientific neutrality, that was soon attacked by the nazis. Despite the small gap between a scientific version of racial hygiene and nazi racism, the nazis were quite critical of what appeared to them as granting science a neutral character. That is why scientists - even the racists among them - felt uneasy about the nazi threat to science neutrality. Alfred Pletz, the German founder of the science of racial hygiene, although a pioneer of Nordic racism and a social Darwinist, paid sincere respect to the methods of objective scientific research, on account of which he was marginalized by the nazis. In other words, after 1933, when the nazis officially sanctioned social Darwinism as part of nazi ideology, there was no room for a social Darwinism free from nazi ideology. However, until the nazis made themselves the party of social Darwinism and made eugenics an integral part of their plan to achieve racial purity, the Germans admitted that the field of eugenics was a universal one not necessarily related to race. Pletz, for example, admitted that the USA was the leader in the realm of eugenics.26Moreover, in the summer of 1934, the International Federation of Eugenics Organizations (IFEO) held a conference, attended by delegations from Norway, the USA, France and Great Britain, which passed a resolution confirming the German belief that eugenics research and practice was of the highest and most urgent importance for the future of all civilized countries.27 However, in the early stages of the conference, a slight shift in emphasis was perceived when the Germans began to link eugenics and race. Ernst Rudin, a
24 Sheila Faith Weiss, 'The Race Hygiene Movement in Germany, 1904-1945' in Mark Adams,

France,Braziland Russia(New York 1990). Science: The Wellborn Eugenicsin Germany, 25 Paul Weindling,'DissectingGermanSocial Darwinism:Historicizingthe Biology of the OrganicState',Sciencein Context,11, 3-4 (1988), 629. 26 See StefanKuhl, The Nazi Connection.Eugenics,AmericanRacismand GermanNational Socialism(New York 1994), 13. See also RandhallHansenand DesmondKing, 'EugenicIdeas, and and Policyin Britain the US', and PoliticalInterests PolicyVariance. Immigration Sterilization WorldPolicy,53 (January 2001), 237-63. 27 Kuhl,op. cit., 27.

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racial hygienist from Munich and the head of the German delegation, spoke about the relationship between mental retardation and race. Falk Ruttke, a lawyer and a member of both the SS and the Committee for Population and Race Policies in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, outlined the steps taken by the nazis, beginning with a measure designed to combat unemployment, seen as leading to family breakdown. The Law to Reduce Unemployment, enacted in July 1933, attempted to replace working women with men through the implementation of state-funded work. The next step, he argued, was to boost procreation through marriage subsidies to young persons of 'good stock'. The Decree for Granting Marriage Loans allowed funding for non-Jewish couples free of mental or physical illness. Moreover, the Law against Dangerous Habitual Criminals of 1933 allowed for the sterilization and castration of criminals. Lastly, to improve the quantity and quality of the German people, the nazis provided special support for rural settlements. The Hereditary Homestead Law and the Law for the New Formation of German Farmer Stock of 1933 provided more than 100,000 new homesteads for families of good stock and subsidized 'hereditarily valuable' farmers. The implementation of these eugenic measures was guaranteed through the centralization of the public health administration following the passage of the Law for the Unification of Health Administration. The centralization of the policy of eugenics under the 'Fiihrer principle' meant that in contrast to the Weimar period, the eugenic society was no longer an independent organization, but was expected to support the government in fulfilling its racial hygiene goals. Ernst Rudin subsequently removed the word 'eugenic' from the society's official name, as the nazi seizure of power eliminated the possibility of a non-racist racial hygiene. After 1933, therefore, racial hygiene combined the ideas of genetic care and racial care. While the former was in the tradition of non-racist meritocratic eugenics concerned with the management of the mental and physical traits of the population, the latter idea of racial care was
new.28

This does not mean that there was no continuity between the pre- and post1933 periods. For example, the sterilization law of 1933 had been concocted by non-racist scientists. Unlike the failed Prussian proposal of 1932, however, the nazi law allowed mandatory sterilization of those individuals who, in the opinion of a genetic health court, were marked for sterilization on racial grounds. Although the law did not explicitly link sterilization and race, it was widely understood that the expert committee composed of Lenz, Ploetz and Rudin merely enjoyed the function of 'rubber stamping' the policy of the government. The supreme genetic court and the newly-established genetic health courts represented nazi ideology while the experts were pure technicians at the service of ideology. In order to emphasize the fact that the German ideologization of eugenics was more moral than 'American' bourgeois eugenics, they explained
28 Faith Weiss, op. cit., 42.

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that sterilization practices in some parts of the USA relied on punishment and In arbitrariness.29 contrast, the Germans proudly referred to their own elaborate decision-making process, based upon a new 'racist' morality. In sum, while the main goal of eugenic scientists was to elaborate a strategy aimed at boosting national efficiency, based on meritocratic parameters, from 1933 such strategies were increasingly defined by the notion that racial purity was a prerequisite of increased national efficiency. Since 1933, the role of the scientists, rather than to defend free research and inquiry, was to provide hard evidence for the inheritance of pathological mental traits to aid the government's effort to sterilize the 'unfit'. Besides that, they contributed to Reich racist policies by teaching eugenics, genetics and anthropology to stateemployed physicians and SS doctors. Finally, they were important in composing racial testimonials and genealogies for the Ministry of the Interior after the passage of the Nuremberg Laws. In short, while the issue of eugenics in pre-nazi Germany was related to the dream of boosting efficiency, the nazis added the element of racist efficiency, central state control and coercion. We should not consider eugenics and bio-ethics as the first step towards perdition - i.e. the nazi twist should not delegitimize eugenics as such. At the same time, there is a clear connection between social engineering, nationalism, productivism and the improvement of one's own race. In that tradition, as claimed by Gisela Bock, the concepts of race and eugenics work together.3? Next, we shall look at how the Swedish social democratic idea of welfare productivity differed from the nazi concept of a racial community, and how eugenic policies contributed to that end. The idea of eugenics in Sweden was sustained by a wide intellectual heritage of physical anthropology. As early as 1882 the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography made studies of the Swedish population in view of the marked changes due to migration. The advancement of genetics replaced this tradition with medical sciences. In 1909 the Swedish Society for Racial Hygiene was formed in Stockholm, and the first Swedish genetics association, the Mendel Society, was formed in 1910. Prominent physicians before the first world war, such as Herman Lundborg, saw eugenics as a reasonable answer to the problematic influx of foreigners. Lundborg also suggested the establishment of a cultural academy, which would include the study of race biology, the Royal Swedish Society for the Study of the People and Culture of Sweden. Another example of this trend was the proposal advanced by Professor Fritiof Lennmalm of the Royal Caroline Institute of Medicine, to establish a Nobel institute for race biology. Although the proposal came to naught, a state institute was proposed in a bill introduced in both chambers of parliament in
29 Kuhl, op. cit., 38. 30 Gisela Bock, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus: Studien zur Rassenpolitik und Frauenpolitik (Opladen 1986), 60. Cited in Kuhl, op. cit., 71.

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1921, under a broad consensus from the conservative right to the social democratic left. The same ideas of race preservation led to the establishment in 1922 of the Race Biological Institute. This could be considered a breakthrough in the history of Swedish eugenics, and was representative of a Swedish national supra-ideology that had been strengthened and had become more overt during the years of the first world war. The 1930s saw the entry of Sweden into the modern era, the ascent of the Social Democratic Party to power, and the establishment of the Swedish welfare state, subsequently labelled 'the people's home'. During this time, the discourse of eugenics evolved from a racial and biological into a social one. Race biology could easily be espoused by race romantics as well as by pragmatic social engineers. Both considered these ideas important, although the basis of their argument differed.3' While it is true that the concept of the people's home has an ethno-cultural connotation, under social democratic rule, membership of the community came to be determined not only by ethnocultural parameters but also by the productive quality of the individual. Due to the high cost of social reform, the non-productive elements of the social margins had to be defined and controlled. The fact that it was the social democrats, who were the political representatives of the idea of progress, who propagated sterilization, enhanced its legitimacy as a social policy tool. Presented as a modern 'scientific' solution, sterilization was more readily accepted. For social democrats, social biology became part of a process of social engineering of the 'right-living' community. This is clearly seen in the Swedish parliamentary debates on the issue of sterilization. From a predominantly racial discourse in 1922, the electoral victory of the Social Democratic Party provoked a change towards more social lines of argument, which became pronounced in the debates surrounding the 1941 sterilization bill. The practical side of an ideology of eugenics was a bill of sterilization. The issue was first raised in parliament in 1922, and various proposals were debated during the following years. A bill of sterilization was enacted in 1934 and expanded in 1941. Both bills were concerned with the 'feeble-minded' and 'asocial' members of society. The enactment of a bill implies a parliamentary majority in favour. Here, we shall concern ourselves with the debate that surrounded the policies of sterilization. Two fundamental problems faced Swedish society and the Social Democratic Party in the period between the wars, characterized by Sweden's entrance into the modern era. The first were the social problems caused by urbanization, mainly those of bad housing and health care for the urban population. The second was the problem of rapid development, which led to a
31 W.A. Jackson, 'The Making of a Social Science Classic: Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma', Perspectives in American History, New Series, vol. 2 (1985), 234.

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demand for a qualitative improvement in the population, mainly through education, to maintain the technological advancements. As these problems were structurally induced, the solution proposed was structural in nature. The ultimate aim was the equality of each individual citizen. This was to be achieved through active welfare policy and social engineering.32 Sweden began developing into a comprehensive and interventionist welfare state after the social democratic electoral victory in 1932. Far-reaching social reforms were implemented, beginning in 1936, and we shall now discuss the concept of welfare eugenics, i.e. policies of a eugenic character, stemming from and promoting welfare reforms. Alva and Gunnar Myrdal, both academics and he a social democratic member of parliament, wrote a book on the subject, Population Crisis, which generated heated debate when it was published in 1934. The Myrdals claimed that a decreasing birth rate had to be actively fought with positive welfare measures. They argued that social policy had failed, as it was aimed mainly at treating the symptoms of sickness, unemployment and criminality. The solution was a preventive social policy, based on large-scale structural changes in the areas of housing, health care, child care, family planning, etc. Ultimately, radical changes in the area of social policy would help to raise productivity as the quality of the population increased and the social costs of poverty, unemployment and criminality decreased.33 Nationalistic reasoning was blended with social reformism in describing the threat that a growing influx of foreign elements would pose:
in We are not interested nationalexpansion.On the otherhand,we havesaid that a rapidly a shrinking population,inheriting ratherrichand roomycountry,mustattractimmigration. to Immigration an old country with a well organizedlabor marketand a ratherhighly of developedstructure social welfareis somethingwhich probablydoes not occur without friction .... This fearhas it is true ...been mingledwith a mild sort of nationinternational of to alism.Afterall, we in Swedenareall striving buildup a socialandculturalstructure our own, betterthanthe one we inherited.34

According to the Myrdals, a 'positive population policy', with the explicit aim of enhancing the quality of the population was necessary in the field of redistribution. Among the policies proposed were increased building, child allowance, maternal care, general health care, etc. For economic and social reasons, it was necessary to 'circumscribe the reproductive freedom of the slightly feeble-minded'.35The 'popular quality' as the Myrdals chose to call it, was a question of societal concern, and thus the good of society preceded the good of the individual. Under the heading 'Social policy and the quality of the population' the Myrdals wrote: 'The primary task of a prophylactic social
32 G. Heckscher, The Welfare State and Beyond: Success and Problems in Scandinavia 1984), 44. (Minneapolis 1997), 200-4. (Stockholm 33 A. Myrdaland G. Myrdal,Krisi befolkningsfrdgan and Problems Policies',TheAnnals,vol. 197, May 1938, 203-4. 34 G. Myrdal,'Population 35 A. Myrdaland G. Myrdal,op. cit., 223.

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policy is creating better human material', and on the specific question of sterilization Alva Myrdal added:
In our day of highly accelerated social reforms the need for sterilization on social grounds gained momentum. Generous social reforms may facilitate home-making and childbearing more than before among the groups of less desirable as well as more desirable parents.36

The Social Democratic Party, as a political argument in favour of welfare policies, effectively used the public debate that was created in the wake of Myrdal's book.37 The Swedish welfare programme, based on the politics of production and egalitarian redistribution, included a policy of sterilization. It is not by chance that this programme owed a great deal of its success to the salience of the population question on the political agenda. For example, Minister of Social Affairs Gustav Moller, speaking at the Socialist Party convention in 1936, ended the discussion by saying: 'I must say that I do not hesitate to scare as many right-wing men, as many Agrarians, and as many People's Party supporters as I can with the threat of our people's imminent disappearance, if that is what makes them vote in favour of the social policies I propose.'38 In contrast to the Fabians, Swedish social democracy remained ideologically pro-working class. Still, the engineering devices proposed by Alva and Gunnar Myrdal, like those of the Fabians, matched technological neutrality as the basis of communitarian socialism. Their brand of socialism stressed the productive subject rather than universal mores. Physical and mental health grew into ideals in the 'People's Home' of welfare Sweden. A positive population policy was aimed at the 'right-living' members of the community. To these groups, improved health care, housing, etc. would serve as encouragement as well as increase production in the long term. A policy of sterilization, on the other hand, was aimed at the 'wrong-living', in an attempt to discourage as well as to reduce short- and long-term costs. In general terms, all the parliamentary debates on sterilization were characterized by a sensitive fear of the 'deviant' or the 'asocial', and the politicians justified their actions in the name of the goals of the collective. If there were objections, they did not pertain to the principle of sterilization as such, but revolved around the due process of law in the implementation of the proposed bill. In some instances it even seems that the issue of primary concern was to find the legislative formula that would allow for the sterilization of the largest number of individuals. The parliamentary debate evolved from more of a racial to an almost exclusively social one between the years 1922 and 1941. When the first steps
36 A. Myrdal, Nation and Family: The Swedish Experiment in Democratic Family and Population Policy (Cambridge, MA 1968), 215. 37 H. Tingsten, Den svenska socialdemokratins ideutveckling, vol. 1 (Stockholm 1967), 336-8. 38 Ibid., 340.

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towards the introduction of sterilization laws were taken in 1922, the public discourse on racial hygiene was at its height in Sweden. The parliamentary debate of 1922 is therefore best characterized by the racial discourse. Racial hygiene, propagating the quality of the Swedish population, was advocated by representatives of all parties. The debate of 1922 led to a public inquiry commission, set up in 1925. The commission submitted its report in 1927, but no law was enacted. Early arguments in favour of a sterilization law emphasized motives of genetic hygiene, especially directed at the 'feeble-minded'. However, up to that time, despite wide interest in the field, scientific findings with respect to hereditary links were still very vague. This meant that for sterilization purposes, only a few properly-verified cases could be subjected to surgery. The term 'feeble-minded' was adopted from medicine and seen as hereditary. The fact that the term was loosely defined was utilized both in the following parliamentary debates and in the process of implementation of the bill, when 'feeble-minded' came to include a wide variety of social indicators and characteristics. Alfred Petren, head inspector of all institutions of mental care in Sweden and social democratic member of parliament, submitted the first motion to enact a bill of sterilization. Petren strove to regulate the cases of sterilization that were not decided on strictly medical grounds. He began discussing sterilization primarily for reasons of racial hygiene, pointing to three groups who were forbidden to marry according to Swedish marriage laws: the mentally deficient, the mentally ill, and epileptics. On the subject of the mentally deficient, Petren held that sterilization was a necessary alternative to life-long institutionalization. The mentally ill should be sterilized if it could be proved that they had no chance of recovery. Epileptics should be allowed sterilization on humanitarian grounds, as it was the only way these otherwise healthy individuals could marry. Petren also discussed sterilization for social reasons, and even considered the possibility of legislating sterilization as punishment for grave sexual offences.39 Interestingly enough, this was the only time when principal objections were raised against sterilization. The left-wing socialist member of parliament Carl Lindhagen argued that 'violating the inviolability of life' through a policy of sterilization would lead to escalation, and potentially even to euthanasia. The problem was that:
When one thus has tread the path of correcting a social evil by means of force, violating the inviolability of life . . . many will say: this is only the first step. Why should we stop here? ... Why only deprive these individuals useless to society and to themselves of their ability to procreate? Is it not more charitable to take their life as well?40 39 Motioner i forsta kammaren, Nr. 38, Av herr Petren, Alfred, angdende lagbestdmmelser, som i vissa fall medgiva sterilisering av sinnessloa, sinnessjuka och fallandesjuka, eventuellt sedlighetsforbrytare. Saml. 3, Band 1, Nr. 1-92 (Stockholm 1922), 3-7. 40 Forsta kammarens protokoll, Nr. 42. Torsdagen den 1 Juni. Band 5, Nr. 38-43 (Stockholm 1922), 45-6.

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Lindhagen's own solution was structural in nature. He pointed to the possibility of a redistribution of land to provide a stable and supportive home for all. He sustained the motion, but made clear that this was in order to allow further investigation of social problems and to find better solutions.41 Besides the moral problem and the fear of escalation there were other far-reaching legalistic questions. A central problem was that sterilization was considered an assault in criminal law. A physician performing the operation for other than medical purposes was open to criminal indictment. Some argued that if the operation was voluntary, it could not constitute an assault. Hedenstierna, another social democratic member of parliament, stressed this point when he noted that cases of serious intervention in individual integrity should be subject to a court of law. However, the response of Petren was that subjecting a final decision in matters of sterilization to a court of law might give the impression that the operation was performed as a punishment.42 The issue of consent was central to all later proposals and bills. As no bill was enacted, the question of sterilization remained open. A proposal for a sterilization bill in 1929 triggered another motion to parliament by Alfred Petren in 1933. Petren was unsatisfied on two accounts. First, sterilization was only allowed on grounds of racial hygiene. No social indications were recognized, nor any humanitarian. Second, the bill called for the consent of the individual concerned, who had to be of legal age. Petren disagreed with these conditions and argued that it was unnecessary in the case of the mentally deficient, as the next of kin should be able to consent to the operation for them. He held that the bill, as it was formulated, failed to fulfil the intent of the state, which as he declared, was to prevent mentally deficient persons from having children. The need for consent would unduly reduce the number of operations that could be performed.43 A government proposal was presented in 1934. The grounds for sterilization were cited as eugenic, social, humanitarian and criminal. 'On a eugenic basis, sterilization has been advocated to prevent the birth of inferior offspring with regard to persons who suffer from certain severe hereditary diseases, and especially with regard to psychologically (including morally) inferior individuals.'44The social grounds entailed 'first and foremost the situation where persons are psychologically or physically inferior to such a degree that they cannot, or are not suited to care for their children'. And 'where the addition of new individuals to a family would constitute such a burden on the family's
41 Ibid., 46-7. 42 Ibid., 51-2. 43 Motioner i forsta kammaren, Nr. 188. Av herr Petren, om utarbetande av nytt forslag till steriliseringslag. Saml. 3, Band 1, Nr. 1-188 (Stockholm 1933), 4-9. 44 Kungliga Maj:ts Propositioner, Nr. 103 Utdrag av protokollet over justitiedepartementsdrendet, haclletinfor Hans Maj:t Konungen i statsrddet a Stockholms slott den 21 dec. 1933, Band 6, Nr. 70-111 (Stockholm 1934), 5.

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welfare that their maintenance would be put in jeopardy . . . that the mother's health would be broken by distress'.45Humanitarian and criminal arguments were also cited, but were not included in the law that was adopted. 'Feeble-minded' individuals were considered genetically inferior, and their inferiority was also assumed to be hereditary. In practice, individuals who were targeted for sterilization displayed various forms of social misbehaviour, and were therefore marked by the state as unable to take care of their children. Thus, the policy was clearly aimed at the weaker members of society, those on the social margins. Two doctors were needed to determine if a person was feeble-minded. Questions were raised in parliament as to the doctors' capability in making this decision, as well as possible errors. In response to these fears that the law could be abused, Karl Gustaf Westman, chair of the second law committee and a social democrat, retorted: 'I dare say that the risk involved, the loss to society of valuable genes borne by the feeble-minded ... is completely illusory.'46 In 1933-34, the eugenic argumentation had been partly replaced by a social one. Although clear links were seen between hereditary genetics and social problems, the latter were the primary subjects of concern. The subsequent parliamentary debate of 1941 even featured speakers who wished to abandon the Darwinist basis of the policy proposal in order to pursue more radical reforms. In 1941, the reforms advocated to expand the sterilization bill were more farreaching than eugenic argumentation would allow, and originated in part in the frustration of legislators over the limited extent to which sterilization was performed under the existing legislation. The primary reason for expanding the law was to regulate the sterilization of those considered fit to give their consent to the operation. The new law would regulate the voluntary sterilization of persons of 'legal capacity'. The proposed law added a social indicator to the existing reasons for sterilization, implicating persons who 'due to an asocial way of life are . . . obviously unfit to have custody of children'. Asociality in this instance meant vagabondry, alcoholism, etc.47 The central claim from the social point of view was that children, due to one or both parents' 'inferiority', would grow up in an unfavourable environment and not receive the care and upbringing necessary to develop into capable members of society. In those cases it would be better if children were not born. This was considered a humanitarian approach.48
45 Ibid., 5. 46 Forsta kammarens protokoll, Nr. 30. Lordagen den 5 maj. Nr. 30-38 (Stockholm 1934), 1-18. 47 Kungl. Maj:ts propositioner, Nr. 13. Kungl. Maj:ts proposition till riksdagen med f6rslag till lag om sterilisering m.m.; given Stockholms slott den 13 december 1940, Saml. 1, Band 5, Nr. 2-30 (Stockholm 1941), 33. 48 Statens Offentliga Utredningar 1936:46 Betinkande angdende sterlilisering avgivet av befolkningskommissionen (Stockholm 1936), 14.

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Simultaneously, the administrative structure was changed, concentrating the majority of the decision-making in one board, renamed the Committee of Social Psychiatry in 1947. From that year, the board included two government political appointees, a clear mark of the socio-political agenda of the board.49 Nils von Hofsten, the most important researcher at the Race Biological Institute, requested that the National Board of Social Health and Welfare to find a link between asociality and heredity genetics. Some politicians opposed the eugenic background of social behaviour, which they saw as a straightjacket that would limit their possibilities of social engineering. For example, Oscar Olsson, a social democratic politician, played down the idea of biological inheritance and talked only of 'social inheritance'. He claimed that 'one must, as far as possible, prevent the reproduction in coming generations of asocial individuals who lead a socially destructive life'.50The parliamentary debate in 1941 thus featured expanded social arguments that had partly 'outgrown' the science of eugenics. Critics even pinpointed the eugenic basis as the main problem facing the interventionist social policy of sterilization. This was also the primary argument whenever the debate touched on the Tattare, a label for transient groups such as Gypsies. In Swedish folklore, the Tattare are supposed to be immoral and idle, and to look dark and southern. In the emerging Swedish welfare state the Tattare were an anomaly that belonged to the social margins. Individuals displaying social character traits generally associated with Tattare were assumed to be members of that 'group'. Broberg and Roll-Hansen argue that the notion of the alien Tattare as a biological reality and as a biological as well as a social threat was strengthened between the 1920s and 1940s. Since their genetic taint was still unproven by more accurate scientific measures, the social indicator for sterilization added to the Sterilization Act of 1941 was regarded as a solution for the Tattare. An anthropometric study carried out by Gunnar Dahlberg, in collaboration with the State Institute for Race Biology in 1944, reached the conclusion that it was objectively impossible to distinguish Tattare from other Swedish citizens in this regard. In other words, if the Tattare were to be discriminated against in Swedish society, eugenic arguments were useless.51Thus, policy-makers and administrators focused on social characteristics, generally associated with marginality, that came to be associated with 'members' of the group. As Swedish historian Maija Runcis has pointed out, women were the main targets for sterilization. Liberated sexual behaviour, untidiness or sloppiness and negligent childcare were all attributed primarily to women.52There was no argument that asocial behaviour was genetically linked. It was, however, thought to be socially hereditary.
49 Runcis, op. cit., 361. 50 Forsta kammarens protokoll, Nr. 24. Onsdagen den 23 april 1941, Nr. 18-33 (Stockholm 1941), 38. 51 See G. Dahlberg, 'Anthropometry of "Tattare", a Special Group of Vagabonds in Sweden', Uppsala Lakareforenings Forhandlingar, New Series 50 (1944). 52 Runcis, op. cit., 176.

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In the expanded law of 1941, voluntary sterilization was regulated. The fervour with which the subject was discussed in parliament, however, led to questions regarding the voluntarism of the law. Social democratic member of parliament Georg Branting argued that forced sterilization was the real aim of the speakers in parliament, as there was no reason to believe that people associated with asociality should voluntarily consent to sterilization. 'I am therefore under the impression that there is a reactionary thought behind the regulation that persons who are considered unsuitable to have custody of children should be sterilized.'53Branting sought a different solution to the social problem. 'As I see it - and I assumed that social democrats in general thought this to be self evident - it is the duty of society to improve miserable social conditions, not just for the parents' sake but also for the children's.'54 The majority of criticism, much more widely expressed than that voiced by Branting, was of the recommendation of the use of force. Members of both the first and second chambers of parliament signed motions in favour of forced sterilization and demanded that the law should provide for the police to fetch a person who did not keep their appointment on the day of the operation. The majority of these signatories were social democrats, and many of them were women.55 In sum, the sterilization law enacted in 1941 is characterized by the extension of the eugenic indicator to include 'antisocial' elements as well as individuals suffering mental retardation and defects of a hereditary nature. If the prerequisites for eugenic or social sterilization were present, the operation could be performed without the patient's consent, if he or she were considered incapable of exercising their legal right. From a political point of view, the Social Democratic Party that took office in 1932 legitimated the collective good as the base of what could be defined as the 'right way' of communitarian living. In other words, the parameters of social organization were set in accordance with a definition of Swedish normality, which was ultimately defended by a policy of sterilization. In the 1950s and 1960s, with rising standards of living and social changes, the ideas that had ruled the old type of eugenics were gradually discarded. The national perspective that had dictated social policy in the 1930s and 1940s became less prominent and the discussion moved from the general to the individual.56Despite these developments, the policy of sterilization, and espe53 Forsta kammarens protokoll, Nr. 24. Onsdagen den 23 april 1941, op. cit., 37. 54 Ibid., 41-2. 55 Motioner i forsta kammaren, Nr. 105. Av herr Kaillmanm. fl., i anledning av Kungl. Maj:ts proposition med forslag till lag om sterilisering m. m. Saml. 3, Nr. 1-244 (Stockholm 1941); Motioner i andra kammaren, Nr. 144. Av froken Nygren m. fl., i anledning av Kungl. Maj:ts proposition, Nr. 13, med forslag till lag om sterilisering, m. m., Saml. 4, Nr. 1-338 (Stockholm 1941); Motioner i andra kammaren, Nr. 37 Av froken Rosen m. fl., i anledning av Kungl. Maj:ts

1941). m. propositionmed f6rslagtill lag om sterilisering m. Saml.4, Nr. 1-338. (Stockholm and in and 56 G. Broberg M. Tyden,'Eugenics Sweden:EfficientCare'in Broberg Hansen,op. cit., 133.

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cially its implementation, were first officially criticized in 1967. Involuntary sterilization was prohibited in 1975.

Eugenic ideas made rapid headway in Sweden at the beginning of the century. They became institutionalized at an early date and racial hygiene was put into practice in the sterilization bills of 1934 and 1941. As noted, Sweden was not alone in implementing these policies. In the early twentieth century, eugenics was established in such countries as Germany, the USA, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and other Scandinavian countries. One of the central motives in writing this article was to trace the links between Swedish social democracy and the policy of eugenics, in an attempt to analyse the modern socialist and welfare argumentation behind the policy of eugenics. The theoretical links between the idea of social margins, social productivity and the welfare state was thus one of the central issues. Although the Swedish state also provided welfare for the weak and the 'wrong-living', a policy of sterilization would 'save society' from the reproduction of these non-productive elements. On the one hand, preventive social measures such as education and health care would improve the quality of the population and increase equality between different groups of society. On the other hand, systematic sterilization of those considered a financial burden on society and those failing to adhere to social norms would reduce social costs and act as a deterrent to enhance compliance and appropriate social behaviour. The idea of a welfare state could thus be considered universal, inasmuch as the idea of universal was seen as including productive 'right-living' people. This concept differs from the nazi idea of race. As noted, the nazis worked to preserve a racial community, whereas the Swedish social democrats aimed at a productive welfare community. Indeed, while the nazis linked eugenics to both race and productivity, the Swedish social democrats were not racist. In order hypothetically to exemplify this difference, a Swedish eugenicist would ask a nazi why a Jew should be discriminated against, when he was a productive member of society. In order to improve productivity, the feeble should be sterilized. However, the feeble sometimes belonged to different races. A final difference was the extreme coercion with which eugenic measures were implemented in nazi Germany in contrast to Sweden. That said, however, the question must be asked whether the fact that nazi coercive measures and the racist nationalism behind the policies of eugenics mark a clear-cut distinction from Swedish reformist eugenics. The answer is not quite clear. As argued, the ideas of efficient socialism, industrial democracy and eugenic policy were characteristics of Swedish social democracy as well as of Fabian socialism, and also of a wide variety of productivist socialists, which had widely contributed to fascism. The Fabians' praise of industrial democracy was based on Darwinist concepts of the survival of 'the fittest'. Eugenics was the necessary conclusion to this end. Some socialists went even further and adopted a fascist view of productivity, still believing that they were

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the real representatives of modern socialism. It should be stressed that there is a thin line dividing socialism, as a proletarian ideology, from a new type of productivist socialism akin to nationalism. With the 'pragmatic', antiideological use of the techniques of social engineering, Swedish social democracy crossed this thin line. However, in contrast to other socialists whose technocratic utopias drove them to authoritarian solutions, Swedish social democracy preserved its democratic content. Ultimately, the democratic forum is what allowed for the transformation of the radical social democratic concept of national efficiency into a more individual view of welfare, which eventually led to changes in the eugenic policies of the past.

Alberto Spektorowski has written widely on the history of political thought, especially on fascist ideology in Europe and Latin America. His latest book is The Origins of Argentina's Revolution of the Right (Notre Dame, IN, 2002). He is currently preparing a manuscript on European ethnoregionalism and the New Right.

Elisabet Mizrachi is an MA student in the Political Science department at Tel Aviv University