Gustav Möller (6 June 1884 – 15 August 1970) was a prominent

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

Social democratic Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soci ...

politician, credited as the father of the

social security system Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

and the

Welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitabl ...

, also called

Folkhemmet ''Folkhemmet'' (, "the people's home") is a political concept that played an important role in the history of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and the Swedish welfare state. It is also sometimes used to refer to the long period between 1932 a ...

. He was a Member of Parliament in 1918-1954 and Member of the Government in 1924–26, 1932–36 and 1936–51.

Life and career

Gustav Möller was born in 1884 to a poor family in

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

, Sweden, but was discovered by his employer and given an education as an office accountant; however he instead used it in the service of the

labor movement The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement ...

, initially as a leader of its publishing house. As Party Secretary and organizer of the Social Democratic base organization 1916–1930, he oversaw the trebling of membership and local branches. During his terms as Minister of Social Affairs 1936-38 and 1939–51, he is credited as the creator of the Swedish

and the

called

. He was partly influenced by

Alva Myrdal Alva Myrdal ( , ; née Reimer; 31 January 1902 – 1 February 1986) was a Swedish sociologist, diplomat and politician. She was a prominent leader of the disarmament movement. She, along with Alfonso García Robles, received the Nobel Peace ...

and

Gunnar Myrdal Karl Gunnar Myrdal ( ; ; 6 December 1898 – 17 May 1987) was a Swedish economist and sociologist. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences along with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money a ...

's ideas about policies which could help families, but more by the Danish Social Democrats C. V. Bramsnæs and

Karl Kristian Steincke Karl Kristian Vilhelm Steincke (25 August 1880 – 8 August 1963), was a Danish politician from the Social Democratic Party. He was justice minister from 1924 to 1926 in the Stauning I Cabinet, social minister from 1929 to 1935 in the Staunin ...

.Välfärdsstaten och dess styrningsmekanismer, 1977, in Per Nyström: ''I folkets tjänst'', Ordfront 1983. There were two specific details of Möller's welfare policy that were colored by his childhood experiences: 1. There should be no stigmatization of the poor, no sorting out of those in need. Rich families as well as poor should have their children's allowance, old age pension and free medical treatment. 2. There should be as little bureaucratic paternalism and arbitrariness as possible. Eligibility should be governed by law. Preferably, the welfare assignments should be administered by the recipients themselves, as when unemployment allowances were administered by the trade unions. And allowances should always be cash. Möller considered the welfare state a temporary stopgap rather than a goal in itself. A dedicated

Socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

, he resigned from government in 1951 rather than following his party into

postwar In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...

compromises with private business. He lived in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

at the time of his death in 1970, his wife Else having died in 1968.

Life and career

References

Further reading