In this series, Dr. Carson examines the connection between ideology and the revolutions of our time and traces the impact on several major countries and the spread of the ideas and practices around the world.
One of the most curious notions of our era is that of the paternal state. Not that it lacks antecedents; it even has a history, of sorts, going back into the dim past of which there is little record. Nor is it curious because we ordinarily refer to it as the paternal state, for we do not. Ordinarily, it is called the welfare state, or, by some of its proponents, the social service state. It is a notion only in the sense, then, that it is the idea which underlies the practices we have come to associate with something that is called the welfare state.
The welfare state notion does not strike most people as odd or curious, so far as we can tell. Clearly, if politicians can run for office and get elected on the basis that they will provide a great variety of goodies, the idea is widely accepted. That it should be so accepted, however, does not mean that it lacks curiosity; it is rather testimony to the fact that when an idea becomes sufficiently familiar, no matter how peculiar it is, it can become a part of the perspective from which we see things. Then it will seem strange that at other times and places people did not see or do it that way. The paternal state notion is curious, in the first place, because it misconstrues the character of the state. The state is not something that can be likened to a father. It does not beget, as a father has done. Nor is it a provider, as the father is supposed to be. The state, or government, is begat, but is itself sterile, sexless, and forever barren. It has no means of its own and is incapable of producing any. It is, so to speak, an abstraction. Whatever the state bestows, it must first take from those who have produced it. Unlike a real life father, it cannot look after us; we must first look after it.
In the second place, the paternal state is a curious notion when viewed in the light of most of history. Those who have governed have usually been the possessors of such ostentatious wealth as was abroad in the land. They have usually been in possession of the finest residences, the best clothes, the most servants, the finest conveyances, and whatever happen to be the going trappings of office. Far from being material benefactors of the people, they have usually been beneficiaries of an unwilling largess from the people. They have entangled their peoples in dynastic wars, taken their substance in order to realize the personal ambitions of rulers, and all too often played havoc with the lives and goods of the people. Far from being father-like—seeking the good of their children—, they have all too often been robber-like and jailor-like. It is greatly to be doubted that the notion of the paternal state would ever have arisen from an empirical study of history.
Family Ties
Even so, government, or the state, may have arisen on analogy with paternity or as the paternal state. Historians have been generally of the view that government may have come into being as rule over the extended family. The organization is usually referred to as the clan. The clan was ruled over by the oldest male, or the male from whom all traced their lineage. If the orientation was maternal, or if allowance was made for maternal rule, the ruler might be the oldest female. The bounds of the state would be the lands claimed by the clan. Such an arrangement would, no doubt, be a paternal state. Nor would its character change greatly if it were enlarged to include several clans and these should be ruled by a council of elders. Family ties, at least within clans, would make it still fundamentally paternal. Undoubtedly, the task fell upon the elders of providing for and looking after those in their care.
The rudiments of this idea can be discerned in hereditary monarchy and similar arrangements. The king was not literally the father of his people, of course, but he could be thought of in that way. Some monarchs have been described as “father,” or “little father.” The council of elders might survive, too, under various names. (The Witan was some such council in England, for instance, as is the surviving House of Lords.) The Roman Catholic Church uses language drawn from paternity to describe many of its clergy. The hereditary feature of monarchy must derive from the paternal concept. While we may doubt that the paternal state could rightfully be applied to monarchies, it does trace its roots to the same idea.
Anathema to Socialists
What is curious here, however, is that socialists should produce and champion a paternal state. Virtually every idea in it has been anathema to socialists. They have ever been ideologically opposed to monarchy. They have been, in all instances, convinced and committed republicans. The paternal state is a conservative idea. Modern socialism stems from the time of the French Revolution, when the emphasis was upon individual rights, when family, tradition, and the whole paraphernalia from the past were in question. Custom and age were losing veneration. Mechanical concepts were replacing ancient ties of flesh and blood.
Moreover, conservatives have played a role in advancing the paternal or welfare state. Disraeli in England, a leading conservative of the latter part of the nineteenth century, took a hand in introducing welfare measures. Even more impressively, Otto von Bismarck, a reputed conservative and Germany’s leading political figure of the latter part of the nineteenth century, brought welfarism to Germany. As one history says, “Between 1884 and 1889 gigantic welfare schemes, the first of their kind in the modern world, provided health, accident, and disability insurance, pensions for widows, orphans, and the aged, giving workers greater security and better living conditions.”¹ It is not uncommon to read that conservatives enacted welfare measures in Sweden.
However, writers often ascribe this penchant for welfare legislation in conservatives to untoward motives. Bismarck, it is sometimes said, was end-playing the socialists. He may have been, of course, but we have no way of being certain of his motives. In any case, conservatives are as entitled to a presumption in favor of the purity of their motives as anyone else. And for politicians to seek advantage through their acts only appears strange to those who can imagine large numbers of selfless people, something that is possible in the imagination but unlikely in the real world. In short, if conservatives have, with some consistency, advanced welfarism the answer should be sought in conservatism, not in something they share with everyone else.
And there is an explanation within conservatism. One of the facets of conservatism is paternalism. The role of the father as head of the household is an ancient and venerated practice. In an extended fashion, the role of the elders within the community as providers and carers for those in need is of long establishment. That those who-have ought to reach out toward and lend assistance to those-who have-not is one of the deepest springs of conservatism. Thus are the bonds of community knit together and the common humanity of those within it confirmed. Conservatives in power in a state have a tendency to devise and support the paternal state.
The Conservative Element
This may be somewhat confusing to many of those who think of themselves as conservatives in the United States. Many thoughtful American conservatives are not in the least sympathetic with governmental paternalism (though there are those who are). Indeed, it can be argued that to be conservative in America is to be opposed to governmental paternalism. There is an historical explanation for this. A strenuous effort was made at the founding of the United States to delimit paternalism. The doctrine of limits pervades our constitutional arrangements. Whatever arrangements a father wished to make for his household was left to him. Associations of men were in like manner left to their devices to form communities and do within them what they would, so long as in so doing they avoided doing some civil or criminal injury. Such arrangements required, of course, that the force of government be denied to any and all in effecting their ends.
It is commonly said that there is a separation of church and state in the United States. The matter runs even deeper than this. Though it is nowhere formally stated, there is a separation of parenthood and the state. At the founding of the United States the individual was released from the tutelage of the state, so to speak. A profound distinction was made between what is the affair of individuals and what are affairs of state. That is the essence of constitutionalism in America. To defend those arrangements became political conservatism in America. Paternalism may have been augmented in America, but it was a paternalism divorced from politics.
European conservatism has a different flavor to it. The separation between parentage and the state that occurred in America did not occur generally in Europe. An American and a European conservative may share similar values, but the import of these values is altered by differences of perspective. The dangers of the state were not so obvious to European conservatives as to Americans. Indeed, those who hold and wield power are unlikely to be impressed with the danger of it, for men do not ordinarily consider themselves dangerous. The paternal stance is, after all, ego flattering, and European conservatives kept it within the makeup of their perspective.
It is not my point, however, that the animus to the creation of the welfare state came from conservatives. That is about as likely as that sow’s ears come from silk purses. Socialism provided the yeast for the welfare state; the people provided the dough; and conservatism provided its intricate patterns. To put it another way, the paternal or welfare state is the end product, thus far, of socialist equalitarian prescriptions when they have been winnowed through the overlay of conservatism in society. The distributive thrust is socialist; the shifting bubbles are populist; and the paternalism is conservative.
As if all this were not irony enough, this strange blend is often referred to as liberalism, not only by American writers but by those in other parts of the world as well. Historic liberalism was not in the least paternal. Its main thrust in the nineteenth century was to limit government, to free the individual, to permit trade without let or hindrance, to expand the suffrage and popular government. The equality that animated liberals was one that held that no man having reached seniority ought to be under the tutelage of another. In the quest for this condition, liberals relied rather heavily on extending the vote and establishing or maintaining popular government. Now, however, we have the paternal state which is widely proclaimed as liberal. Proponents of the welfare state have gone far toward co-opting the available intellectual positions.
The Paternal Role
The topic at hand, of course, is Sweden and the paternal state. Since Sweden does not proclaim itself to be a paternal state, and since the phrase is by no means generally employed, some proof of the proposition is in order.
What is a paternal state? It is, in brief, a state which takes over and performs the functions of a father, or those of the dominant parent. Since some may have forgotten the role of the father and the grounds for it, it may be helpful to recall it. It is on the father’s physical initiative that the act is begun by which conception takes place. Since the male’s physical condition is unaltered by the ensuing pregnancy and since, in any case, he is larger and stronger, it is his responsibility and function to provide for the female and the unborn infant during the period of pregnancy. It is his task, of course, to make provision for the delivery of the child.
A newborn infant is helpless, or very nearly so, having only the ability to breathe and the capacity to take nourishment. In this situation, the main task of the father is to protect infant and mother and provide food, clothing, and shelter. Since the human child does not become large or strong or sufficiently well developed to look after himself for several years after birth, both parents perform assorted functions for him. They not only provide for his basic material needs but also such medical care as he requires, for instruction (education) in their culture, for his moral indoctrination, and for such training as may fit him for becoming an adult.
To the father particularly belongs the instruction and training of a son, and to the mother that of a daughter, assisted as they may be by the surrounding community. As the child grows toward manhood, he takes on more and more the role of the adult and becomes less and less dependent on his parents. As the parents grow old and lose their powers the time arrives for the child to attend them in their declining years.
Cultural Prescriptions
In practice, of course, it does not always happen that way. The father can terminate the relationship at any stage that he will. Nor does it necessarily occur that mother and offspring will perform in the way described. Hence, there have usually been cultural prescriptions, religious sanctions, and, mayhap, legal enactments to insure the performance of these roles. The roles are themselves founded in nature, but the support of them is cultural.
“Paternal” is descriptive of and derives from the normal role of the father during the formative years of the child. A paternal state is one which assumes or imitates this role. Sweden was one of the first and may be thought of as the model of the paternal state. Until a more thoroughgoing one is devised, Sweden is the paternal state.
A qualification is in order. Human fathers have not been entirely replaced in Sweden. But a major shift of the functions of paternity from the father to the state has taken place.
To wit. There may be a gleam in the prospective mother’s eye before conception ever takes place, a gleam aroused by the hope of reward. At the birth of an infant, the state steps forth and awards the mother over one thousand kronor (the Swedish monetary unit). Sometimes, a human father who was especially pleased has bestowed gifts on the new mother. The paternal state in Sweden has removed the element of chance; it is established by law and as sure as taxes.
Enter, the State
As incubation begins, the state stands by to perform vital paternal functions. There are “free” maternity clinics for expectant mothers and their unborn children, and Papa State will pay three-fourths of the cost of dental care. Should custom or remote location lead to the use of a midwife, the state will pay the fee. If the expectant mother needs transport at her appointed time, the paternal state will pay for the cost of the taxi, even if the infant should be born therein. Should they be so fortunate as to make it to the hospital, the service there is “free.” If the new mother has been remuneratively employed, she need have no anxiety about her job. The state has established that she may have up to a total of six months leave which may be taken in any combination of prior to, during, and after the birth of the child.
There is one fly in all this ointment, however; in multiple births, the mother receives only one-half the award (only some 500 kronor) for each child above one.2
Having taken such pains thus far, it is hardly to be expected that the paternal state will abandon mother and child at the hospital. It will, of course, supplement the cost of housing for mother and child and, should the human father deign to live with them, for him as well. Should the mother be a “single parent,” i.e., in a situation in which no wedding has preceded the birth, the state offers special attention and care. The state has caused to be built and set aside for their special use apartments for unmarried mothers. (As yet, no “swinging single” apartments have been built for unwed fathers.) There is also a category known as a “one-parent family,” in which the parent may be either male or female, and the state offers aid to them in their undertaking.
Naturally, the paternal state provides support for each child regardless of the parental status of those with whom he dwells. The allowance to the mother for each child is 900 kronor per year. This particular payment ceases at the age of sixteen. In addition, if one of his parents dies, the child receives a “pension” of 1300 kronor. If both parents should die, the amount is increased to 1820 kronor. These payments stop at the age of sixteen also. Especially needy families can apply for and get additional supplements for each child. Mothers who grow weary of attending children can apply to the paternal state for a holiday grant. The grant pays not only for travel to and fro but also for the costs while at the rest home. Of course, there is industrial insurance to protect workers from injury or disease when they are at their employment (paid for by the employer as required by the state), but compensation takes into account the value of housework lost as a result of being harmed on the outside job.
Child Care and Education
The paternal state has not neglected to provide day nurseries for small children, although such facilities are said to be in short supply. There are nurseries where children may be placed for the day. There are also afternoon homes for children in school who can come to them after school and be looked after and fed while the mother is at work.
It should come as no surprise that the paternal state in Sweden provides for the formal education of the children. Of course, the schools are “free,” as are schoolbooks, dental care, and such psychological attention as the child may require. College and university students are assisted by various loans and grants. Nor is there any need for parents to concern themselves about the character or quality of education, for that has been determined by the state. Of late, there have even been two sorts of school in the land, one of which was initially somewhat experimental.
Children are sometimes sick and afflicted in Sweden as elsewhere, as are also adults. All treatment in Swedish hospitals and clinics is “free.” If, however, a physician is called to the home, he must be paid by the patient who can then turn in the receipt and get a refund of about three-fourths of the amount of the bill. Taxis to and from hospitals must also be paid on the spot, but the cost can be reclaimed by the presentation of the receipt.
Once the child has grown up and is ready to marry, or at least set up housekeeping on his own, the fatherly state is on hand to make the transition easier. The state does not quite provide a dowry; it is rather more like a combination of loans and aids. There are housing loans available, and the state will come forth with up to 15 per cent of the collateral value of the house. In some circumstances, a rent subsidy may be forthcoming if that path is followed rather than purchase. A home furnishing loan can be obtained from the state also, with a maximum of 5000 kronor to those in the greatest need.
Just as natural parents are relieved of much of the responsibility for their children, so does the paternal state relieve children of the necessity for caring for their parents in old age. An elaborate system of old age pensions is established. “The idea is to provide every wage-earner, on retirement, with a substantial pension directly related to—in practice about two-thirds of—his or her earnings in his or her prime. There are upper and lower limits to qualifying incomes, that part of the income lying outside these lines not counting for the calculation of supplementary pension. The eligible sum is termed the pension-bearing income, and it is a percentage of this amount . . . which is payable by the employer in premiums. Self-employed persons must pay their own.”3 If an old person is not living in suitable accommodations, he can apply for housing in blocks set aside for old people. If, because of some debility, he should need occasional assistance this can be provided in his home. If he is no longer able to look after himself, he can go into an old people’s home or into hospitals for the chronically ill.
Why No Baby Boom?
Now here is an anomaly. It might be supposed that with much of the burden of the child bearing and rearing removed from natural parents there would be a great baby boom. Moreover, an additional thrust in this direction has been provided by removing every stigma from bearing children out of wedlock (if one may employ so dated a term). But it has not turned out that way. As one writer says, “Sweden is extraordinary in its low birth rate and low rate of population increase.” As a matter of fact, the lump sum payment to the mother on the birth of a child was devised many years ago with the specific purpose of spurring an increase in births. To no avail. For some time now, Sweden has been encouraging immigrants to come in to augment the declining work force.
Cause and effect in human action is more complex than we may think. It takes place within a context much broader than man’s simple legislation and piddling interventions. There is a law in physics that “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” (Italics added.) The working of the law may be illustrated in this fashion. When someone fires a gun there will be a kick from it. The kick from the gun is the equal and opposite reaction to the action of the bullet being fired from the gun. Reverberations (or repetitions) of action and reaction continue until the stock of the gun is still and the bullet has come to rest. The implications of this law are far-reaching, and we are justified in supposing that they extend to all happenings on this planet.
Muted Reaction
What will be the equal and opposite reaction to the action of a paternal state conferring benefits on some portion of the population? No answer can be made to such a question in the abstract. One might as well ask how strong a kick a hunter will receive from firing a gun. The recoil of a weapon is, of course, in direct proportion to the size of the explosion which propels the bullet from the gun. The size of the explosion is determined by the amount of the charge in the shell. There is no meaningful limit to the potential variations in the charge.
On the other hand, the expression of the recoil depends upon the materials used and the design of the gun. In some guns, the recoil comes out in the rise of the barrel. In others, it is felt in the stock of the weapon. In some, there is no perceptible kick, owing to weight distribution in the gun. There are even what are called “recoil-less” weapons, by which we understand not that the law of compensation has been abridged but that the equal and opposite reaction has been so cushioned and dispersed that it can no longer be detected. All this is by way of saying that the character of the equal and opposite reaction is determined by the variables of the context within which the action occurs. It is, so to speak, a conditioned effect.
It is, then, the conditions in Sweden that determine the reaction to the actions of the welfare state. By. many outward appearances Sweden is still a traditional land. There is the monarch, the royal family, the established church, and a government with roots deep into the past. Long observed festivals are reenacted, and folk songs and dances are performed as of yore. Much of the legislation which has brought forth the paternal state has a conservative cast to it. It is conservative to encourage young people to go out on their own and have their own housing. It is even more conservative to encourage marriage and the founding of families. The nurture and caring for children and seeing that they are housed, fed, clothed, and educated has about it a conservative aroma. That people should be looked after in their old age is of similar vintage.
The sound is not to be taken for the substance, however. Sweden is a profoundly different land from what it was at the beginning of this century. A traditional overlay survives; but beneath it, surrounding it, and now overwhelming it, is something quite different. Sweden is under the sway of the idea that has the world in its grip. Those who think of Sweden in terms only of a modified socialism with certain economic policies have not begun to grasp the extent of the change.
The great change has come in the rooting out of the moral, spiritual, and cultural foundations of the society. The established church is still there; old churches still stand sometimes and many new ones have been built. But attendance is exceedingly slim. Individuals are in the church registers, but such a status requires nothing by way of religious observance, and little is done. Marriages often take place in churches but the frequent divorces saw the bonds of ties in civil surroundings. A new “morality” has arisen, a morality without foundation in transcendent sanctions. Gradualism has slowly devoured what formerly existed and replaced it with something else.
A major tenet of the idea that has the world in its grip is that government shall concert all efforts and bring about a collective unity. The power over affairs is shifted from individuals and families inwardly directed by custom, tradition, and morality to a state driven by goals proclaimed for the future. The acquisition of this power comes by way of the promises which add up to a paternal state.
Motives Involved
What human motives are engaged from the populace in this shift of power to the state? Freud said that man wishes to return to the womb. Whether this is so or not, the present writer cannot profess to know.
But it is clearly the case that there are aspects of childhood to which we would like to return if we have left or to retain if we are still there. Perhaps the most prominent one is freedom from responsibility. The child, the small child anyhow, ever has his material needs provided by someone else: he is suckled, diapered, warmed, and watched over by others. As he grows a little older he can arise at will, play until he is tired at whatever amuses him, and rest until he has recuperated. His is a life without the nuisance of responsibility and bounded only by the aggravations there may be in the exercise of external authority over him.
The paternal state grows on the tacit premise of restoring and maintaining an irresponsibility which has its roots in the childhood experience, then. It shifts the burdens of the adult to the state and, in hope, provides a perpetual childhood for the citizenry.
Within this framework it can be seen why the equal and opposite reactions to the actions of the paternal state are not what might be supposed. Why, when the paternal state has relieved so many of the burdens of parents and even provided rewards, is there not a baby boom in Sweden? Because—to put it in its simplest terms—the state has not relieved all the burdens, and that is the underlying promise and the expectation which its actions arouse.
Because expectant mothers grow large and unwieldy, have “morning” sickness, and their feet and legs are apt to swell on them. Because an infant is still brought forth in pain and suffering, even if the “free” taxi makes it to the “free” hospital. Because children still require a great deal of attention, however much assistance the state may provide. Because the bearing of children has its ultimate meaning within the framework of extended family, community, and moral and spiritual overtones. Because beaming grandparents are the human reward for a newborn child. Because the gathering of friends and relatives to inspect and “ooh” and “ah” over the infant is a normal incentive. Because Divine injunction supports replenishing the earth with children. Because the normal consequence of aroused sexual passion is conception.
Because socialists in devising the paternal state have tampered with and cut away the framework of bearing and nurturing of children and the purpose of the family. Because the idea of a perpetual child-like carefree existence would require that there be no children for whom to care. Because contraceptives and abortions are in accord with this idea rather than the bearing of children. Because the paternal state substitutes a cold and impersonal mechanism for the warmth that arises from the freedom and responsibility of normal human action. Because for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, though the opposite reaction is the appropriate reaction to the action.
Because, in the final analysis, the paternal state is an anomaly. It is of the same character as the notion that there can be a rifle without recoil. The paternal state is a notion born of and promoted by hiding the consequences as the “recoil-less” rifle is an appearance achieved by design and materials. The state is an abstraction. Unlike a human father it neither toils nor spins. All that the state hands out as benefits must first be taken from those who labor. It is time now to look at the carefully concealed other side of reality hidden by socialist rhetoric.
Next: 17. Sweden: Tightening the Screws.
—FOOTNOTES—
Tugen Weber, A Modern History of Europe (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), p. 813.
²These figures were taken from Paul B. Austin, The Swedes (New York: Praeger, 1970) and should be considered as illustrative rather than f¹nal, since the amounts do change from time to time.
³Ibid., pp. 84-85.
4Donald S. Connery, The Scandinavians (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966), p. 392.
