contract of employment is still essentially an authoritarian relationship of subordination rather than one based on a dialogue between equals.629 During l’ancien régime every person was supposed to be conscious of and remain at his or her position in a fixed social and ethical system. The Swedish state’s ecclesiastical and economical programme prescribed an open-ended duty of obedience for subjects in general and workers in particular. The power of the state, sovereign and master was founded on a commission from God. Accordingly the common interest of realising His will on earth aimed at making the legal regulation unapproachable for critics. The view was founded on the common assumption which states that “Father knows best” and has got one of its most drastic expressions in the Bible's cautionary tale about Abraham. In order to fulfil a contract and for the sake of a superior purpose, Abraham blindly obeys God's order to sacrifice the most beloved he has, his own son Isaac, who, in turn, shows a complete confidence and obedience.A father would not do his child any harm, would he? Winroth’s analysis of 1878 was modern in the sense that it might have promoted a marriage between century-old notions about subordination and 20th century conceptions about liberal and democratic society.The labour court’s decisions around 1930 facilitated the solving of a political crisis connected with the “worker’s issue”. It promoted a compromise between on the one hand contractual notions and on the other hand demands for a work-force, which would be flexible enough to fit into a complex and rapidly changing labour life.The teleological method of calling down “natural”, though hidden, terms corresponded to underlying century old assumptions on how to organise society as well as reflecting the opinions of contemporary learned p a r t v, c h a p t e r 1 2 354 12. 3 rat ional case law? 629 See also Bruun 1995, pp. 85-86 and Hållfast arbetsrätt…2002, pp. 414-419.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=