Ties to the Elite

Would you like to become powerful? To shape the future and impact the lives of millions of people?

Photography by Karina Drozdova & Mikko Haapaniemi

The mysterious “elite”; a small circle of people who hold a lot of power due to formal positions, informal connections and economic resources. Today, the historical methods of entering the elite –such as war or donations of land to the crown – are seen as quite barbaric and problematic. So, with those options gone, what should an ambitious young person do? Well, you might already be on the right path, as SSE is commonly described as a “school for the elite “. The only question left is whether that path will lead you to the left or to the right.

There is no doubt that SSE is primarily perceived to have ties to the business elite with strong connections to the political parties to the right. While SSE is seen as a more liberal school today, the historical view is undoubtedly the dominating perspective. In 2018, the 479 pages long book “Handels: Maktelitens skola” (“SSE: the school of the elite”) was published, describing SSE as a closed system that fosters new leaders who are prepared to join the business elite and defend and forward capitalism, instead of learning how to think independently. Unsurprisingly SSE heavily criticized the book, but the debate and reviews it initiated in the media clearly showed that this is still how SSE is viewed by many.

The business elite is undoubtedly very powerful, but politics in general and the government in particular, can be said to hold even more power. For a long time, the government was synonymous with the social democrats, in Sweden. Given the image of SSE described above, a fair assumption would therefore be that SSE’s connection to the political elite has been more or less nonexistent. Surprisingly, this is not the case. You most likely know that Magdalena Andersson, the current party leader of the social democrats and previous prime minister, studied at SSE, but she is only one of many prominent social democrats who received their education at SSE. While few hold as visible roles as her, many who work in key positions behind the scenes, primarily in the ministry of finance, are from SSE, in a way that is unmatched in the parties to the right. One example of this is Emma Lennartsson, who has held numerous positions, such as state secretary under both Stefan Löfven and Magdalena Andersson, and was responsible for the economic crisis packages during covid-19 (other noticeable examples are e.g. Max Elger and Elin Eliasson). In periods, some have remarked that almost all political advisers at the ministry of finance hold a degree from SSE. This seems quite paradoxical – a school that is said to produce a capitalistic economic elite instead supplies the political elite with social democrats – and it raises two very interesting questions: has this always been the case, and how has social democrats been viewed within SSE historically?

Most of the social democrats described above graduated during the 1990s. In order to develop our understanding of social democrats’ presence and how they have been viewed at SSE throughout the decades, we turn to old issues of Minimax. One should note that Minimax does not necessarily reflect the entire school, but it can provide some interesting insight into the discussions at the time. To narrow the perspective somewhat, this article will focus on the period 1966-1976, the last decade of a 40-year long era of social democratic rule (1936-1976). It is immediately noticeable that even back then students subscribed to very different ideologies, including social democracy. It also beco- mes clear that the connection between the social democratic elite and SSE is not a new phenomenon. For example, one of the social democratic candidates in the 60s election who ran for vice president of SASSE was Erik Åsbrink, who would later go on to become the minister of finance for the social democratic party. During the 1980s, he was a part of “kanslihushögern”, a highly influential social democratic group which to a large degree consisted of SSE graduates.

Minimax covered a survey of student’s political preferences at Stockholms Universitet in 1966, complemented by a smaller survey at SSE. Roughly 20-25% of respondents said that they would vote for the social democrats in an election, which tells us two things. Even though it is way below their votes in the general elections, where they received more than 50% of the votes two years later, the survey shows that social democrats were a pro- minent minority already in the late 1960s. Interestingly enough, it also showed that participation in elections to the student union were much higher amongst students who leaned to the left.

We now turn to the second part of the question: how were “leftists” viewed at SSE? As previously mentioned, there were constant political discussions going on throughout the entire period. Initially, these discussions were quite confrontative. Rather than advocating their own policies, organizations to the right prioritized avoiding SSE and Minimax turning into something leftist. At the same time, many articles expressed a great fascination for social democracy and the ideas to the left, although most of them remained highly skeptical – imagine someone watching a fascinating, but weird, animal at the zoo. In the late 1960s social democracy was discussed in great detail, but those who actually supported it seems to have been viewed as somewhat different. As one writer put it “The worst part about social democrats is not that they dress ugly, but that they do it on purpose”. The right’s dominance in the discussion can also be seen in an article on Marx that was included in the special edition which were made for new småttingar, as “lack of knowledge is the primary reason people accept his thoughts”. The piece is highly humorous and well written but very unlike anything that would be included in a småttingguide today. Students wishing to be perceived as intellectual often discussed Marx in Minimax, doing so in extensive quantity. One issue contained, not one, not two, but three separate pieces on Marx, which were then followed up in the following issue, and so on.

Moving closer to the change of government following the 1976 elections that ended a 40 year long era of un- interrupted social democratic rule, the confrontational tone and view that social democrats were something different seems to have decreased by quite a lot. It is hard to tell whether this was due to a change in the political climate in Sweden, more social democrats being admitted to SSE or if the parties to the right simply moved their focus from proving that the existing solution (social democrats) were bad to proving that the new solution (the right) would work.

Nevertheless, this meant that the social democratic party achieved a position as a much more legitimate counterpart. Of course, neither this nor the seemingly constant connection between SSE and the political elite shows that the view of SSE that dominates the media is wrong. However, it showcases a very fascinating duality of SSE – despite being known for fostering a capitalistic homogeneity rather than independent thinking, competing perspectives have always been present, leading to a constant internal debate, with an increasing amount of respect between the two sides.