c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 263 vís-a-vís the employers were already well provided for by what was from an international perspective, a highly developed trade union movement. It would be better to let the economic conditions be dictated by those economic laws that “spontaneously” developed from business and society than to resort to political power and legislation.530 It is obvious that von Sydow in1923 was airing the same view of the law that we encountered, among other places, in the memorandum by Olin and Åkerman in 1907, the proposed bill of 1910, Lindman and Petersson in the debate of the same year, the proposed bill of the National Board of Health and Welfare of 1916 and those who registered their dissent in the committee proposal on industrial democracy.The task of legislation was not to change patterns of action, but instead to strengthen the positions and customs that had “spontaneously” established themselves in real life.Wigforss’ proposal, on the other hand, recommended legislation as an instrument to do just that - to change established patterns and power positions. That view, however, seems to have been controversial even within the ranks of the labour movement itself. At the Social Democratic congress of 1924, the demand for industrial democracy was incorporated into the party programme.The workers were to be assured influence in the operation of privately owned companies. In the parliament of the same year a Social Democratic party bill was introduced with similar contents. However, in the debate, the Social Democrats adopted a wait-and-see attitude, while the Communists regarded the proposal as insufficient and aimed at helping the capitalists make bigger profits. The Conservative Party leader, Arvid Lindman moved to reject the bill and the chambers of the parliament approved this without a vote.531 530 von Sydow1923, pp. 24, 31. 531 MFK 1924:106; MAK 1924:194; FK 1924:45, pp. 71-72; AK 1924:44, pp. 50-51; Schiller 1974, pp. 328-329; Hadenius 1983, pp. 23-25.
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