Control and Cooperative Capitalism: Governments and Nordic Timber Cartel 1918-1933 EBHA Conference, Glasgow 2010. Elina Kuorelahti (
[email protected]) Work in progress. Elina Kuorelahti, PhD student EBHA Conference Finnish and Nordic History 26-28th August 2010 Faculty of Arts Glasgow, Scotland University of Helsinki A work in progress
[email protected] Control and Cooperative Capitalism: Governments and Nordic Timber Cartel 1918-1933 Cartels represent one of the most distinctive features of the 20th century cooperative capitalism. Many economic historians has pointed out that it’s impossible to approach the 20th century economic history without taking cartels in consideration.1 Much has been already done in order to understand cartels as economic and political institution, yet there are relatively large unstudied areas in political prerequisites and underlying conditions behind cooperative behavior. Cooperative culture within and between industrial and public sectors was one of the key factors enabling the long line development of cartel economy starting from late 19th century and stretching well beyond 1945 when cartel behavior became illegal in Europe.2 By cooperative culture we understand the interdependent relationship between governments, banks, industrial associations in national and international context that makes cartel agreements possible by promoting, supervising, backing up and even forcing cartel members to desired behavior. In this paper I study previously unexplored formation and development of cooperative culture between Swedish and Finnish timber producers in 1918-1933. The focus of this paper is to analyze Nordic cooperation and to discuss its’ role as a cartel representing one of the most important export industries in Nordic countries.