Samhällets drägg och fattigdomens adel

Abstract

To be poor not only implies that one suffers from a lack of material resources, but also that one risks being seen as a social parasite in the eyes of one's fellow man. This negative perception of the needy is not a uniquely Swedish phenomenon but is rather the rsult of a common development in Central and Eastern Europe beginning with the Reformation, when mass poverty began to be apprehended as a threat to society at the same time as the Protestant work ethic was gaining general acceptance. The present article discusses how a network of philanthropists and politicians, active members of Centralförbundet för Socialt Arbete (the National Association for Social Work) and Svenska Fattigvårdsförbundet (the National Association for Poor Relief), classified the poor as either "worthy" or "unworthy", in the debate on the reform of poor relief which took place in Sweden during the first two decades of the twentieth century. The poor were classified in accordance with the middle-class values these individuals had acquired during their own adolescence in the classic, bourgeois milieu of the late 19th-century, Victorian Sweden. Those possessing the virtues of reliability, propriety, diligence and sobriety were considered worthy of society's aid, while those who failed to live up to the cultural virtues of the middle class were deemed unworthy and instead needed to be enlightened and deterred from their wicked ways. Furthermore, such suspicions motivated heavy supervision of the poor, marked by distrust and even antipathy. It is here that the poor of the early twentieth century and the poor of today ⁠— the recipients of social benefits ⁠— have something in common. Poverty does not only imply that one lives in reduced material circumstances, but also with the stigma of being suspected of being lazy and unambitious.

Keywords

• poor relief
• fattigvård
• centralförbundet för socialt arbete
• svenska fattigvårdsförbundet
• social benefits