On the basis of the breakthrough of Finnish welfare state something relevant can be perhaps found about the relations between the structure, politics and grassroots people.

1. ”Remember those people dying at home by sending them some
money.” This is joke by Finnish language, one comedian had added
two extra letters and changed the meaning of this advice. The
original idea was, that you should send money to your family. The
Photo is from 1957 during the great unemployment time when the
unemployed were moved to work far from their homes.
Baltic Circle 13.11.2015
Päivi Uljas
A Breakthrough of Welfare State

2. ● In comparison with the Nordic countries Finland was the
most economically under-developed country after the
Second World War. The share of agriculture in the working
population in the 1950s was the same as what it had been
in Denmark, Sweden and Norway in the early 1900s.
● In a broader European perspective Finland was even more
late, urbanization happened very quickly during about
twenty years.
● Finland can thus offer good conditions to research the birth
of a welfare state.
● On the basis of the Finnish case something relevant can be
perhaps found about the relations between the structure,
politics and grassroots people.

3. Items
The unusually rapid and powerful structural change; the non-
parliamentary civic movements of 1956–1963; and the left
majority in the Finnish parliament between 1958–1962 all took
place as the Finnish welfare state started to develop.
I shall try to analyse the inter-relationships of these processes
and describe the way the former semi self-sufficient, semi-
proletarian and labour-intensive form of production – a simple
and discriminatory system in itself – made it possible for the
majority of the population to survive through hard work. For
some it even provided a possibility to prosper.
The weakening vitality of semi self-sufficiency and small-scale
agriculture triggered a political ferment and started a period of
searching for something new.

4. 3 %
15 %
18 %
34 %
30 %
Kaikki ostettiin
Mökkiläisyys ilman eläimiä
Mökkiläisyys eläimillä
Omavarainen
Puoliproletaarisen elämänmuodon kartta
The model of semiproletarian Finnish life, survey
on the basis of the memories of about 900 retired
building- and foodworkers. (made 2008)
In their childhood
3 % lived near to
present urban life
15 % bought their milk,
potatoes, meat, fueling
wood, practically
everything
18 % had own their
potatoes and
vegetables, partly fueling
wood, fish, berries and
so on
34 %, in addition, had
animals, a cow, a pig...
30 % bought only sugar,
coffee, petrol and
sometimes wheat.

5. More about the survey
Did you have a feeling that your duty was to economically help your parents and siblings
after you moved away from home
Yes 182 22,0 %
When needed 345 41,6 %
No 302 36,4 %
There was a very strong correlation, near 70 %, between trade union activism and the
sense of duty to help families.
Two great land reforms were formed in Finland, one in 1918 and the other in 1945-1962.
The own small-scale farm was considered the most important basis for social security.
This semiproletarian model formed mainly of the family taking care of each other and
growing their own potatoes and picking wood from waste lands, milkig ones own cow
and havig a pig. Children worked with adults and the exchange of products and services
gave possibities for living conditions. In difficult winters poor people ate only milk and
potatoes.

6. The old semiproletarian model degenerates
Profitability of small-scale farms remained weak and they were not able to get modern
agricultural technology.
When the post-war reconstruction was over, new settlement - villages, roads, schools,
post offices, stables and houses were built, carpenters and masons no longer
had enough work, especially in the eastern and northern regions. The forest
industry no longer needed the work of farmers in the same extend as the earlier.
Unemployment increased.
Food self-sufficiency had been achieved, and livestock-production already reached
surplus levels.
The hegemony of small-scale farming began to be questioned, as well by researchers
and politicians. This led to conflicts within political parties and between parties.
The Agriculture Committee's report of 1962 stated that during the period between
1945­1961, 313000 hectares of new arable land had been cleared from forests and
swamps. The Committee bluntly summed up that by 1970 the 350 000 hectares of
arable land would be an excess to the consumption needs of the country. ”Throughout
the post­war period the transforming and working of forests and swamps into arable
land was proving to be futile.”
And people had to move in search of livelihood to cities

7. Finnish austerity
A majority of nearly all parties accepted the idea on
returning to the so called night-watchman economic
policies, in the years 1952-1959.
● In my research I found, in Helsingin Sanomat alone,
that in the year 1956 more than a 100, and in 1957
more than one hundred and fifty articles, calling for a
return to the pre-war economic policy and social
spending and fiscal contracts.
● The public sector was considered as socialism, and
demands were made to decrease it

8. Starting moments, ”mad years”
Coincidence?
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
ALKUTUOTANNON TYÖLLISYYSOSUUS TYÖLLISYYS PROS
JALOSTUKSEN TYÖLLISYYSOSUUS TYÖLLISYYS PROS
PALVELUJEN TYÖLLISYYSOSUUS TYÖLLISYYS PROS
Percentage
in Finnish
industrial
structure
Services
Processing
Primary
production

9. Mothers´movement 1957
Government tried to move paying child
benefits. Those fees were exceptionally
important to farming mothers and other
poor families. Mothers became angry and
sent hundreds of letters to Parliament
and demonstrated all over Finland.
Between 1950-1960 over 500 000 people
in Finland left agriculture and forestry, as
well as the farm economy.
Specially people from small-scale farms
less than five hectares decreased by
more than 40 %. People from farms of
less than two hectares decreaced more
than 60 per cent. They were mainly the
rural young generation.

10. Great demonstrations
against austerity
between 1957-1963
were organized by the
grassroot trade-union
organizations of
buildingworkers,
metalworkers and
foodworkers, and
others
Within the survey of
those pensioned
before, only 7-8 % were
born in Helsinki. They
were the victims of the
destruction of old rural
worlds.
Was the the work, you did during your childhood, economically
important for your family?
Yes, asnwered 85 % of those pensioned building- and
foodworkers
They were the
victims of the
destruction of the
old rural world
.

11. ● General strike in 1956
● Mothers movements in 1957
● Great demonstrations in 1957-1963
● Left parties majority in Parliament during 1958-1962
and 1966-1970
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
ALKUTUO TANNO N TYÖ LLISYYSO SUUS TYÖ LLISYYS PRO S
JALO STUKSEN TYÖ LLISYYSO SUUS TYÖ LLISYYS PRO S
PALVELUJEN TYÖ LLISYYSO SUUS TYÖ LLISYYS PRO S

12. ● New unemployment fee system in 1960
● A third week for vacation in 1960
● New pension system in 1962
● New health care system and fees in 1963
● Gradually towards 40 hours working week in 1964
● And much more
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
ALKUTUO TANNO N TYÖ LLISYYSO SUUS TYÖ LLISYYS PRO S
JALO STUKSEN TYÖ LLISYYSO SUUS TYÖ LLISYYS PRO S
PALVELUJEN TYÖ LLISYYSO SUUS TYÖ LLISYYS PRO S

13. 1956 Urho Kekkonen was
elected President with a
majority of one vote.
1957 Social Democratic
Party split up
1958 Farmers Party split up
1961 Both Folk Parties split
up in President election
1962 1962 Urho Kekkonen
was elected President for
the second time. Only then
the Conservative Party
began to accept new ideas.
A new balance was born
after enormous scandals,
after several trials and split­
up political parties.
The support of the welfare
state had won in all parties
by 1966
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
ALKUTUOTANNON TYÖLLISYYSOSUUS TYÖLLISYYS PROS
JALOSTUKSEN TYÖLLISYYSOSUUS TYÖLLISYYS PROS
PALVELUJEN TYÖLLISYYSOSUUS TYÖLLISYYS PROS
The support of welfare
state won in parties
until 1966

14. The share of progressive income tax
of all personal taxes
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Progressiivisen tuloveron osuus kaikista henkilöveroista

15. The Phaze of Interregnum
The process of change was so intense that it broke up most of the parties and
tore down the old consensus that was based on the power of economic and
political elite.
The most crucial battle of the great transformation was waged over the nature
of the state: Should we build a welfare state and construct social security
systems, or should we revert to the old night watchman state and, for
example, cancel the modest forms of redistribution of income carried out in
the 1950’s?
The people joining the civic movements were either cottagers of the
impoverishing countryside or, quite often, people who had come from the
countryside and thus had grown up under conditions of some form of
solidarity that included taking care of one’s own family.
The Finnish social insurance developed in the midst of a change in the
structure of production of the society, and it became a compromise to satisfy
the needs of both the weakening society of small scale agriculture and the
rising proletarian society based on wage labour.

16. The hodgepodge of political schemes and use of power became a battle between
different notions of the economy and the state; the distribution of national income;
and the position of Finland in the international context.
This battle created a shape of an interregnum – a period of transformation including
two notions of society, two alternative paths for the future and the logic of a
correctional move.
The transformation of Finland from a poor developing country into a prosperous
society has been praised as a success story.
In 1956–1959, when the old form of governance based on the interests of small
scale agriculture and wood processing industry was in decay, and when the future
seemed uncertain, the projects to reduce social benefits and efforts to distribute
national income even more unequally than before led to a powerful counter-
movement by citizens and started an hegemonic change and a more equal social
development.
The Future was open in 1958

17. ” One Should be a Smith of One's Own Happiness” – Ideology
of semiproletarian system?
The question of state in a new situation, where the former halfway self-
sufficient life is no longer enough, this issue becomes actual. The
process has been going on globally and historicallly only for a cuple of
hundred years and everywhere it is necessary to to solve similar problems.
The social security provided by the family is no longer enough. The
developments of transportation, medical care or, for example, the
information society are constantly demanding more complex systems and
running the infrastructure of a new society increasingly demands higher
levels of education. The systems are more expensive and more difficult to
manage. Everything requires trust between people, who do not know each
other.
The organization and financing of this life models are debated and fought in
every corner of the globe. National traditions and visions vary and
consciousness are all changing
● Low pay and the rapid growth of the semiproletarian countries create a
competitive situation and may encourage thoughts of seeing the future
similar to what was our past, 50 – 60 years ago

18. Specifics of the Finnish mode
Poor people in different – urban or rural – groups
were of the same nationality, and even related to
each other
– Traditions of a strong state
– The threat and challenges posed by the Soviet
Union and the socialist world camp
The loss of the right­wing politics in the Second
World War and relations with Nazi Germany
Strong polarizations and politics of taking sides
after the 1918 civil war

19. – and generalizations
In the processes of industrialization and urbanization some
forms of social insurances have been built almost
universally. (remember Bismarck)
● Globally we are near the mystic 60% of urbanization
The Nordic models are superior in almost all comparisons
between different countries in dealing with systems
Class relations, tradition and religions, a well as
interrelations of people living in poverty define how each
society answers the challenges of urbanization and new
tehnology.

20. Rethinking the welfarestates
Asian next revolutions
Countries across the continent are building welfare states—
with a chance to learn from the West’s mistakes
The Economist Sep 8th 2012 | from the print edition