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official cheap supras mbt sandals clearance und elsewhere, in which private mbt shoes review citizens attempt to suborn public servants. The foundation of that arrangement is the assumption that State and citizen are opponents. If, in a Western democracy, a businessman enters the government, he must accept estrangement from the business fraternity, because once he has accepted the embrace of the State he becomes suspect, whatever the policies of the regime or the nature of his opinions. That is not the case in Sweden. There, the division lies not between State and people, but between governors and governed in the broadest sense of the word. 106 The New Totalitarians There is an hierarchic structure, each step of which is composed of people with equivalent power, with no distinction <a href="http://www.belstaffsjackets.co.uk/belstaff-jackets-womens-c-2.html"><strong>belstaff on sale</strong></a> between officialdom and the rest. Thus, a senior Cabinet minister, an LO leader, and the head of a major bank or the representative of a whole industry feel affinity and find it natural to associate mbt shoes online . A little lower, it might be a senior civil servant, a leading official of a big trade union, the managing director of a large company and an official of some popular organization, and so on mbt chapa down the scale. These people feel themselves to be the rulers of the country, and they have evolved the contact network because they consider government by stealth the most efficient way of ruling. Meetings are private, and never reported in the mass media. In many ways, the network is the real, if invisible, government of Sweden. One of the most important coteries in the contact network is that around the Minister of Finance, Mr Gunnar Strang, comprising some half a dozen of the country’s leading industrialists and financiers. By this device, the government can influence business clandestinely; but the traffic is not one way. A saying has it that ‘the second Minister of Finance is Dr Marcus Wallenberg’ (referring to a leading banker). The true political dialogue in Sweden takes place within the contact mbt discount network, and public oratory, not to mention parliamentary debate, is mostly tactical verbiage mbt . The government always lets business know its true intentions. If, for example, the Social Democrats find it necessary to attack private enterprise in order to placate their left wing, they will warn industry in good time. Thus there arises the odd situation of businessmen looking on without alarm while politicians breathe quasi-Marxist fire. Sometimes, however, the conflict between secret conciliation and open attack may grow too great for comfort. An official of the Employers’ Confederation confessed in 1970 that he was worried because, although Mr Krister Wickman, then Minister of Industry, was The Corporate State 107 being extraordinarily polite and encouraging in private, his public statements were becoming more bellicose than seemed absolutely necessary. The existence of the contact network, combined with a corporate State, gives rise to a secret government which, in turn, leads to some anomalies in public life. One is that men will often refuse government office, because more power is to be found elsewhere. For example, the secretary general of the LO (although not in the Cabinet) is one of the most powerful men in mbt sale Sweden, yielding only to the Prime cheap mbts Minister or the Minister of Finance, and sometimes overruling even them. Again, this is perfectly understood and willingly accepted by the public. The power of the secretary general derives from the position of the LO as a limb of the State; his influence is exerted through the contact network, which may be defined in another way as an informal and extended council of government. Then, it not infrequently happens that the man with the power need not necessarily be the man with the highest position, and identifying the real chief in Stockholm may be as difficult as doing so in the Kremlin. It is the position within the ‘secret government’ that counts. To take one example, the real ruler of Sweden since 1969 has not been Mr Olof Palme, the Prime Minister, but Mr Gunnar Strang, the Minister of Finance. And indeed, mbt shoes uk in one or two public speeches, Mr Strang has openly rebuked Mr Palme, in order to establish the order of precedence. Personal advantages aside, the reason for Mr Strang’s superiority is that he is mbt walking shoes a trade unionist, that he has the LO behind him, and his position at the apex of the contact network as distinct from the formal government structure is unchallenged. The business of ruling Sweden, then, is conducted not in parliamentary institutions, but in a kind of secret society. <a href="http://www.belstaffsjackets.co.uk"><strong>belstaff outlet</strong></a> Diet debates are poor affairs, because the central organizations debar the opposition from the pursuit of contentious 108 The New Totalitarians issues. This is part of the compact of ‘licensed intrigue’. The government agrees to treat directly; in return, the central organizations suppress parliamentary conflict. Organizations find that they can achieve their aims by talking privately to the government, where political debate gets them nowhere. Understandably, they keep matters of substance off the floor of the Diet, for settlement in an extra-parliamentary manner. Under these circumstances, it might justifiably be asked, what functions remain to the Diet and mbt lami what remains for the members to talk about? After government and corporate organizations have agreed, the result of their deliberations is presented to the Diet for ratification. Debate is confined to empty oratory about generalities, designed to show the electorate that their representatives do, in fact, work. Whatever the question, the assembly is generally in agreement. Issue is rarely taken over principle, the permitted ration of criticism being concentrated on details, and intended to suggest that the government’s opponents, while accepting its aims, could realize them better. The point about all this is not <a href="http://www.belstaffsjackets.co.uk/belstaff-jackets-womens-c-2.html"><strong>belstaff jackets womens</strong></a> that it exists, but that it is accepted. The man in the street knows perfectly well that the country is run in this way, and he is happy to let it continue. He trusts his bureaucrats. Threat of political trouble is used by corporate organizations as blackmail recognized in the process of ‘licensed mbt kisumu intrigue’. If the government proves obdurate in a particular matter, it will be raised in the Diet – but not too harshly. Whereupon, to avoid public controversy the government almost always changes its mind, reopening mbt walking shoes talks. And, in its turn, the organization stops the debate. Control of parliamentary activity may be exerted by clandestine, external pressure; more frequently it follows from the composition of the parties. Very few Diet members sit as individuals. Whatever their party, they are usually nominated, and elected, as the representatives of corporate organiThe Corporate State 109 zations. Among the Social Democrats, it may be the trade unions; in the Centre party, farmers’ cooperatives; among the Conservatives, the Employers’ Confederation. The central organizations command a good proportion of the representation on both the government and opposition benches and, as explained above, they put organization above constituent. In this way, the Diet is the creature of the corporate State. To take one example of the workings of the system, the TCO in 1 mbt stockists 968 found difficulty in persuading the government to yield to certain salary demands mbt shoes australia made on behalf of civil mbt trainers outlet servants. Through their members in the Liberal party, the TCO raised the issue in the Diet. Once was enough; the government repented, and the TCO called off the debate. The party was not pleased, because it had been presented with a question that embarrassed the government, but the central organization it was that ruled. In another field, the Conservative party is usually restrained by the Employers’ Confederation from attacking government fiscal policy to the full. This is not because the Confederation approves – quite the contrary – but because parliamentary aggression would jeopardize its influence in the bureaucratic establishment. To keep their compact with the government, the central organizations must uphold the principle of rule by consensus. This follows from the nature, not only of the rulers, but the ruled as well. The Swedes have a horror of controversy as something <a href="http://www.xinzhouba.com/view.php?id=17540"><strong>2011 Nike Jordan New Style » Free Article Submission</strong></a> unpleasant, inefficient and mbt shoes vaguely immoral. They require for peace of mind, not confrontation, but consensus. Consensus guides everything: private conversation, intellectual life and the running of the State. The government, although, it wants its way, mbt shoes sale must avoid a fight if it is not to alienate the electorate. It is in response to a deep popular feeling that matters of substance are removed from the political arena and turned over to the bureaucrats. The nationalization of the chemists illustrates both this no The New Totalitarians feeling and the functioning of the corporate State. Although the Social Democrats have rejected the dogma of State ownership for its own sake, nevertheless for political purposes they have, from time to time, been constrained to make excursions into nationalization. For some years at the end of the 1960s the party leaders had been troubled by left-wing agitation for more public ownership, and decided that the retail chemists would be the least troublesome sop to offer. The Apothecaries’ Society, the chemists’ central organization, had previously decided that their profession needed to be reorganized. The development
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