Just as the Swedish model has successfully been built on dialogue between different interests, the history of business and working life must be understood as a whole where forces, sometimes cooperating, sometimes in conflict, together have contributed to the building of society. In this historiography, many sources and many voices are needed.
At the Centre for Business History, we therefore look with concern at ARAB (the Swedish Labour Movement's Archives and Library) cutting down its staff and operations. The library section is freezing the collections of books and journals, the archive section is struggling to make the resources last. ARAB's chairman Per Holmström confirms that a total of five positions are being cut and that two will not be refilled following natural departures. What is next?
What worries us most is whether this is an expression of a larger development, where society's memory is put on low flame. First the libraries but the archives feel the same tendencies. At the same time, the field is left open for political forces to appropriate history for their purposes.
The second aspect concerns the working-class movement’s historiography. Author Maja Hagerman describes in a noted DN article (2019-07-05) a tug of war over the memory of the labor movement, where the Sweden Democrats write themselves into history as the champion of the people's home while the labor movement itself is stuck in rigid narratives. "No exciting language, no surprising perspectives, no vividness, no good story." Against this, Hagerman puts the business community's historiography and not least the Centre for Business History's channels where the history of companies is presented as a strategic asset.
We are not interested in capitalizing on that comparison. It is our mission to preserve and tell the history of business, based on facts and serious research. ARAB is needed to do the same for the labor movement. Both stories are necessary; they are two sides of the same coin. The labor movement must continue to believe in its history.
It is not easy for an archival institution to make the resources suffice. ARAB's reality is also ours. And our origin in the 1970s was also in a publicly funded model. However, we have long since left that behind us, which has given us extensive experience in seeking new sources of income, revenues that allow us to continue living up to the goals set by the nonprofit association that is our principal. We are happy to share that experience.
