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Social Engineering in Practice: The Population Issue

In: The Dynamics of Poverty

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  • Mats Lundahl

    (Stockholm School of Economics)

Abstract

This chapter deals with Gunnar Myrdal’s interest in population issues. It provides an account of the best-selling book he wrote together with his wife Alva, Kris i befolkningsfrågan [Crisis in the Population Question], published in 1934, considered as the starting point of the Social Democratic construction of the modern Swedish welfare society. The book not only dealt with the problem of the decreasing rate of reproduction in Sweden at the beginning of the 1930s, but it also called for a radical restructuring of social policy along collectivist lines. The chapter tells the story of the hostile reception of the book not least by two of Myrdal’s most famous Swedish fellow economists: Gustav Cassel and Eli Heckscher. It also sheds light on the latter-day discussion of the actual importance of the Myrdal book for the Swedish model of society. Finally, it traces the main steps of the beginning of Myrdal’s conversion to institutionalism.

Suggested Citation

  • Mats Lundahl, 2021. "Social Engineering in Practice: The Population Issue," Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought, in: The Dynamics of Poverty, chapter 0, pages 37-55, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:pshchp:978-3-030-73347-6_3
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-73347-6_3
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