Ernst Wigforss

Ernst Wigforss

Ernst Wigforss 1947

Ernst Johannes Wigforss (born January 24, 1881 in Halmstad , † January 2, 1977 in Stora Hult , municipality of Båstad ) was a Swedish linguist and politician of the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party (SAP). He was Swedish Finance Minister for several terms .

Wigforss was born in Halmstad on the west coast of Sweden. His father was a craftsman. After graduating from the public high school in Halmstad, Wigforss began studying at Lund University in 1899 and received his doctorate in 1913 with a thesis that later became part of the larger work on The Folk Language of Halland . In it, Wigforss developed a modern understanding of language as fundamental and constitutive for culture .

Path to the political theorist

During his studies his interest in social processes and politics was aroused. In addition, he increasingly freed himself from the religiosity shaped by the parental home. Wigforss became a member of a political association of students in Lund that was close to radicalism . In 1907 Wigforss became chairman of the group. Wigforss quickly began to deal with the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . In 1908 he brought out the book Materialist Conception of History and Class Struggle . Throughout his life, however, Wigforss kept a critical distance from Marx and especially from those who canonized his writings. Above all , Wigforss was not impressed by Marx's theory of surplus value , but he did later deal intensively with the problems of value.

Wigforss quickly developed into a committed discussant and programmatic thought leader in Swedish social democracy. Early on, Wigforss broke away from the idea of ​​the “great men” as the driving forces behind history and referred to the importance of the economic needs of larger groups - that is, he stuck to the concept of class.

With his thoughts on the provisional utopias , Wigforss made significant contributions to the theoretical debate. In this work he dealt with the importance of utopias for political action. So utopias should always adapt to the changing new conditions.

Political career

In 1919 Wigforss was elected as a social democratic member of parliament for Gothenburg in the first chamber of the Swedish parliament , which was still in existence at the time . Under the Social Democratic Prime Minister Rickard Sandler , Wigforss was appointed finance minister for the first time in 1925, only temporarily in place of the sick incumbent Fredrik Thorsson and after his death as ordinary minister until the resignation of the government on June 7, 1926. Wigforss was under Per Albin Hansson from 1932 to 1936 again finance minister, also in the following governments until 1949.

Wigforss played an outstanding role in the development of the Swedish welfare state and an economic policy that is characterized by high taxes. The economist John Maynard Keynes had a decisive influence on Wigforss' political actions . Even after the end of his ministerial career, Wigforss was politically active outside parliament. He was involved in the anti-nuclear movement and campaigned for an end to the Swedish nuclear weapons research program.

Works (selection)

• Södra Hallands folkmål, Stockholm 1913 (dissertation)
• Nej! Till svenska atomvapen, Stockholm 1959

literature

• Paul Lindblom: Ernst Wigforss (1881-1976) in: Walter Euchner (Hrsg.): Classic of Socialism . Munich 1991, Vol. 2, pp. 151-165.
• Ernst Johannes Wigforss , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 32/1952 of July 28, 1952, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)