Items19The creator’s order
  1. 1Per Albin HanssonPer Albin HanssonBorn 28 Oct 1885Hansson's 1928 "people's home" speech recast socialism as a national household without class divisions, and his 1933 deal with the Farmers' Party traded farm price support for job-creation spending. The 1938 Saltsjöbaden agreement left wage setting to unions and employers rather than the state, the…0i
  2. 2Michael Joseph SavageMichael Joseph SavageBorn 23 Mar 1872New Zealand's first Labour prime minister passed the Social Security Act 1938, combining pensions, sickness benefits and free health care in one of the first comprehensive systems anywhere. His government also built state rental housing on a large scale; costs and wartime controls tested the model…0i
  3. 3Léon BlumLéon BlumBorn 9 Apr 1872Blum's Popular Front government of 1936 brokered the Matignon Accords, bringing the 40-hour week, paid holidays and collective agreements after a wave of factory occupations. Capital flight and his refusal to intervene in the Spanish Civil War brought it down within a year, a lesson about reform…0i
  4. 4Clement AttleeClement AttleeBorn 3 Jan 1883Attlee's 1945 government chose public ownership and a tax-funded state service: it nationalised coal, rail and steel and created the National Health Service in 1948, free at the point of use. Compare the Swedish route of leaving industry private and bargaining over wages instead.0i
  5. 5Tommy DouglasTommy DouglasBorn 20 Oct 1904A provincial route to national change: Douglas's Saskatchewan government introduced hospital insurance in 1947 and passed universal medical care in 1961, which took effect in 1962 under his successor despite a doctors' strike. The model was adopted federally as Canada's Medicare, and he balanced…0i
  6. 6Tage ErlanderTage ErlanderBorn 13 Jun 1901Erlander's governments from 1946 to 1969 adopted the Rehn-Meidner approach: solidaristic wages that squeezed weak firms, active labour market retraining, and a supplementary earnings-related pension won in a 1959 parliamentary vote by one seat. Universal benefits for the middle class were the…0i
  7. 7Anthony CroslandAnthony CroslandBorn 29 Aug 1918Crosland's The Future of Socialism (1956) argued that ownership mattered less than equality, so Labour should drop further nationalisation and use growth, taxation and comprehensive schools instead. As education secretary he pushed comprehensives; his 1975 warning to local councils that "the…0i
  8. 8Bruno KreiskyBruno KreiskyKreisky's "Austro-Keynesianism" after 1970 used deficit spending, a hard currency peg to the Deutschmark and social partnership between unions and employers to keep unemployment low through the oil shocks. Rising public debt and losses in nationalised industry were the price critics pointed to.0i
  9. 9François MitterrandFrançois MitterrandBorn 26 Oct 1916Mitterrand's 1981 programme nationalised banks and industrial groups, raised the minimum wage and cut the working week, then reversed course in the 1983 "tournant de la rigueur" to stay in the European Monetary System. The U-turn is the standard case study of national reflation colliding with open…0i
  10. 10Bob HawkeBob HawkeBorn 9 Dec 1929Hawke's 1983 Prices and Incomes Accord with the unions traded wage restraint for Medicare, superannuation and tax cuts, while his government floated the dollar and cut tariffs with treasurer Paul Keating. Supporters call it a model of consensual market reform; left critics say it weakened union…0i