Everyone’s coming – to the PR agency
Sweden has never ticked along better than it does today, statistically speaking. GDP is three times higher than when I was born, and twenty times higher than when my grandmother was born. Swedish companies are making record profits. The welfare is world class and the public finances are in balance. Public health is personified by Gunde Svan and living by Anna Anka. The external environment has reached a post-industrial stage where we worry about studded-tyre particles and build tunnels for rare frogs. Of course, there are problems to solve, but most nations would burn their flags to have Sweden’s troubles. We live not only in the shining city on the hill, in global terms, but also in an experimental workshop. In many areas, Sweden is in first place, driven by the fanatical attitude which three hundred years ago made the Swedes the world’s most militarised and fundamentalist people, but which has now has made us the most secular, feminised and connected.
The reasons why Sweden has been able to thrive in modernity are the rational management, the successful interaction between elite and mass, as well as between expertise and democracy. The question for the future is whether this dialectical balance will persist, or whether we still live in the good old days, when the decision-making and information flow were still characterised by professionalism. In the absence of ideology and party members, policy has become a question for the PR agencies. To find objections to this development is not difficult, but what if we find ourselves in the very best of worlds? PR policy can be described as a hodgepodge of special interests, dead-ends, hidden agendas and brilliant marketing of the superficial at the expense of deep and crucial issues. But it can also be seen as one aspect of the experts’ dominance in society.
If the policy of Olof Palme’s time was ‘to want’, the policy thirty years later is ‘to package’. What is packaged and sold is not only streamlined by the administrators of power, but also through the experts’ advice on enlightened management, ultimately in the interest of citizens. There is still a democracy, but a new kind of democracy. The problem occurs when the voters are not aware of how the grindstones work and are therefore liable to be misled – or, at least, think they have been misled when times get rough.
The unique thing about Sweden is the combination of individualism and collectivism. Through an alliance with the state, the individual has freed himself from social constraints. This has resulted in the world’s highest taxes – but also the world’s strongest craving for self-realisation, if only in the form of a tattoo on the buttocks. Two politicians have been more significant than any others on the way to this exotic society: the Social Democrats Per Albin Hansson and Olof Palme. The former borrowed the idea of the welfare state from the Conservatives. The latter completed the building through radical reforms and tax increases. It may seem paradoxical that one of the two came from the purest working class and the other from the upper upper class. The class distinctions in Sweden were not great, and everyone could agree on the idea of the welfare state, an almost utopian fusion of Otto von Bismarck’s patriarchal care, and Karl Marx’s classless society. Through the American influence in the postwar period, this Germanic dish was given a layer of hamburger sauce, but the basic recipe remained the same. We live in the gap between the norms of a farming community and the advertising culture from Mad Men. One foot in the manure pile, the other on Madison Avenue.
It is no coincidence that Per Albin Hansson spent his formative early years in England in 1915, and Olof Palme his formative early years in the U.S. in 1948. These prospective icons hit upon a way forward in a nation that had hitherto admired the Germans. The Social Democratic hegemony during the 1900s got an Anglo-Saxon, individualistic dimension that contributed to the sense of modernity. Read the declaration of love for his childhood motoring in Göran Persson’s memoirs, and you’ll understand. Although the welfare state is still grounded in Per Albin, Palme and Persson’s party (like the U.S. and UK) it is in decline. Only one in five working Swedes voted for the Social Democrats in 2010. The crisis of the formerly successful party of power is also the crisis of a popular movement. It was the organisation’s strength – one hundred thousand members, corporate structures and a proud tradition – that now seems more like an impediment. The rival Conservative Party looks like a reptile-fast PR agency in comparison.
The Social Democrats have fallen into a coma just as the welfare state is embraced by all parliamentary parties. Just as the Liberals won themselves to death when all affirmed freedom, the Social Democrats have won themselves to death now that all affirm health care, education and welfare. Another explanation for the 2000s landslide in Swedish politics – the biggest since the labour movement began to vie for power in 1932 – of course, is the sociological change. Since 1980, income inequality has increased, more as a result of the knowledge economy than as a result of deliberate policy. Terms such as workers, officials, employed and capitalists have lost their meaning. Today’s employees are also speculators; many business owners are on low incomes, and the work-liberated are the real underclass. Managers with a sense of self-preservation have become self-employed consultants while the former, professional upper class in the form of doctors and head teachers are thoroughly proletarianised.
The right-wing power grab is a logical consequence of this class inversion. Who needs a workers’ party when there are no nine-to-fivers? Of all the explanations for the shift between the Social Democrats and the Conservatives, the politics of PR is the most important. Only the one who allows their ideals to be subordinated to focus groups, only the one who streamlines their message is now electable and ready to govern. After the election defeat in 2002, a small circle of Conservatives, with Fredrik Reinfeldt at its head, turned its political course 180 degrees; away from tax cuts for ‘the rich’, to focus on the broad masses of working welfare consumers. Within a few years, the new Conservatives were more different to the old Conservatives than their main opponent on the Left. It worked better than anyone had expected; in a way that a social movement party could not. There, it listened to the grass roots, held consultations and member polls so people could recognise the party. Persson could, during his prolonged years of powerful minority government, defy the gravity of PR logic. With the softer Mona Sahlin it couldn’t work.
Sluggish social movements need struggle no more, neither horse-trading interest parties, or highly-strung ideological parties. Politics is now about marketing, packaging, and sales. Only a small circle at the head of the Conservative party has appreciated the full consequences of this. For that reason they own Rosenbad to 2018, at least. Such structural changes in society are always obscured by the personalities who dominate the media. This is what happened, in reality, while we watched the geeky Carl Bildt, the pilsner film character Goran Persson, the sexy but slightly boring Mr and Mrs Reinfeldt, the smoking Mona Sahlin, and the genial Hakan Juholt on TV. With which of these brands does the average person of the 2000s identify? The answer can be found in the clear graphs from SCB, Sifo and Synovate.
Western societies have undergone three phases and are now entering a fourth: from elite rule, to popular rule, to expert rule, to network rule. During elite rule, bread, political theatre and hired soldiers were sufficient to keep the masses in check. Popular rule makes its breakthrough as a result of the American and French revolutions. Propaganda starts becoming critical, something Napoleon Bonaparte soon understands. This makes the media a force to be reckoned with. The Swedish Social Democrats’ glory days are also the heyday of popular majority rule – and of the journalists. The culmination occurs in 1968, when the floodgates opened to the universities, and the automatic telephone answering machines of newspapers, radio and television say, “You are employed” to a whole generation of upwardly mobile youth. The Second Chamber election in 1968 is indeed a triumph for the Social Democrats. In his final election, leader Tage Erlander takes his party to an overall majority, with 50.12 percent of the vote.Not sure why this is in the present tense. It doesn’t really fit with the rest of the piece.Not sure why this is in the present tense. It doesn’t really fit with the rest of the piece.
In recent decades, societal development can be described as the transition from popular rule to expert rule. Superficially, we have experienced a democratisation, with an explosion of possibilities for trivial choices and expression, but in reality the elite has regained control. Independent Central Bank, Independent National Audit, a pension system with safeguards against political meddling, and restrictions on public spending are tangible symbols of the changes in the system. The wave of the bloc-excess reforms in the 1990s had this very purpose: to save Sweden from majority domination drift.
Most of the Lindbeck Commission’s 113 points from 1993 have been implemented. It consisted of the thoughts of professors, not from Ring P 1. Sweden is doing better, because we had a generation of responsible technocrats who had the benefit of expert input when drafting legislation. Politicians like Kjell-Olof Feldt, Ingvar Carlsson, Ingela Thalen, Goran Persson, Olof Johansson, Bengt Westerberg, Anne Wibble and Bo Konberg have not received the appreciation they deserve for the Swedish Renaissance after the crisis of the 1990s. The restoration is still ongoing, although the pace of renewal has been subdued. A parallel and related process is the drift from journalism to PR. During a period when the established media have struggled with profitability problems, cuts and declining confidence, the carpeting at public relations offices in Stockholm has become thicker every year. In this industry, the financial crisis caused not a single ripple on the surface; on the contrary, it was searching high and low for new PR consultants, even in 2008-2009.
The gifted 1980s generation is looking with the same surety to JKL, Kreab, Prime, Gullers and Diplomat, with which the baby-boomers once made their way to DN, TT and SR. Much of the information refinement and meaningful creative work that was once done by editors is now done by the PR industry, often by the same people as before. The pattern is self-reinforcing. Diminished editors have no time for investigative journalism; much easier then to run well-written and well-informed opinion pieces produced by public relations professionals, or to present ready-made promotional packages as their own news. In genres such as motoring, fashion and entertainment journalism, this model has been established for a long time. To the trained eye, it is becoming increasingly apparent even in the opinion-, political- and business pages. During a period when we imagine that blogs are driving a democratisation of media, we have rather seen more professionalism. It is certain that you can rarely have an impact without media training, PR consultants and information strategies. But fewer and fewer of the most resourceful in the community are choosing to take chances.
None of the players in this new information field are interested in crushing the public’s illusions about the division of roles. PR consultants want to work but not be seen, and the journalists seem, like the MPs, to be happy to be seen but not work. Modern politicians are certainly media-fixated. But the legislators’ decision-making will increasingly come from expert bodies and qualified stakeholders – from PR agencies and public affairs departments – than it is formed by journalism. It may seem contradictory that society works better when politics has become so limply PR-driven. In fact, it is logical, because the PR industry’s expansion reflects the need to package and gain expert advice.
Populärt
Amnesty har blivit en aktivistklubb
Den tidigare så ansedda människorättsorganisationen har övergett sina ideal och ideologiserats, skriver Bengt G Nilsson.
This is a shift in power that is all too rarely discussed. One reason for this is that everyone involved benefits from maintaining the traditional image. Objectivity and the will of the people is not as important to the decision-making process as ceremonial speeches suggest, but the system of expert rule and PR-politics has other benefits. Sweden is governed in many respects better than before, which is reflected in its rapidly increasing prosperity. Just as many people idealise popular rule, the welfare state and the public journalists of the past, we will soon idealise the era of experts and PR. The fourth phase, namely the network’s time, is on its way. One could also describe it as a pendulum that swings back from elite rule to whimsical democracy. Special features of this new-old pattern are sudden changes, uncertainty about who has the initiative, and sputtering opinions that die as fast as they appear.
New media technologies have always resulted in social and political convulsions. The printing press led to the Reformation, which led to religious wars that tore Europe apart. The daily papers contributed to the nationalist witch-hunts before the First World War. Radio and film were powerful tools in the hands of the Nazis who started the Second World War. We have already seen how terrorists use IT – both instrumentally and as a meeting place in which to foment contradictory worldviews. We have seen media technology’s revolutionary potential in authoritarian countries like Iran and Egypt. Our already open society has so far integrated the new technology more smoothly. Our social- and consumption habits have changed, of course, our productivity has increased without a corresponding inflation pressures but, in terms of policy, the major impact is still ahead of us. A premonition came in the 2009 European elections, when the Pirate Party became the largest in the selection group for thirty years. Here was a movement that dared to disregard public opinion on the web and which, encouraged by temporarily overlapping issues, achieved an impressive mobilisation.
Over time, the iron triangle of experts, state-controlled parties, PR industry, mass media and financial interests is going to be weakened by this unpredictable network society. Consider that phenomena such as Facebook, Twitter, Wikileaks and the Pirate Party are only a few years old. The whims of the masses will have a greater impact, while the control towers crumble down and are deserted. Good or bad? Both, of course. Many revolutions have carried the seeds of a better society, but made terrible sacrifices along the way. Personally, I believe that we will soon look back at the relative stability of the expert rule of the early 2000s with regret. Julian Assange, Mark Zuckerberg and Rick Falkvinge have, each in their own way, brought us a little closer to the brave new world of the network, as the poet William Butler Yeats with his cyclical view of time captured a hundred years ago:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.