Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - II. The Swedish People - 3. National Character and Social Conditions. Introd. by [G. Sundbärg] J. Asproth - Social Classes and Distinctions. By P. Fahlbeck - Moral Conditions. By [G. Sundbärg] E. Arosenius
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
MORA I, CONDITIONS,
159
lower (from 103 ore per kg to about 58, for refined sugar) but the
consumption of this article has gone up very much more, and this witnesses
to a greatly increased power of purchase.
Another symptom of general prosperity, of which an account is given
in another section, consists of the death-rate among children: here the
marked diminution in Sweden is possibly the most reliable evidence of
improved economic conditions among all ranks of its inhabitants. We can,
therefore, even without exact details, affirm that economic development
has led to a general increase of prosperity. The rapid rise in the income of
the nation during the last generation has been general through all classes.
No doubt can be entertained of that. Whether simultaneously
distribution, especially of capital, has become more equal now than before cannot
be determined from the material at our disposal. But that is a minor
concern from the social point of view. Economic equality, in our own day
and in a rapidly developing country, is an impossibility, and would, if it
could be achieved, cut short that development at a blow. It is also a
mistake to think that inequalities in capital and income nowadays furnish
any obstacle against social equality. The levelling of class distinctions
comes to pass irrespectively of economic conditions, because all are equal
in political privileges and in general public education. More importanl
than economic equality is to secure that manual labourers are well situated
and that every normally equipped individual can, through industry and
orderliness, reach an assured position of comfort. And this is now more
generally the case in Sweden.
Moral conditions.
When social science wishes to examine into the moral condition of a
people, it must, as is well known, content itself to a very great extent
with negative indications. Omitting the subject of crime and phenomena
connected with the temperance question — matters that will be dealt with
in special sections in the following pages — some facts will be given
here concerning the number of illegitimate births, as well as some other
data derived from vital or medical statistics, which will serve to throw
light upon public and private morals, in the more restricted meaning of
this word.
The frequency of illegitimate births, (which is certainly not the
only or even the safest measure of the moral condition of a nation,
but which, in any case, illustrates one side of it), forms on the whole,
one of the dark sides of the social life of Sweden, even though those
conditions are far from being as unfavourable as people often make out.
The frequency of illegitimate births is usually expressed as a percentage of
the total number of births. If viewed from the point of view of the morality
of a nation, this frequency, however, ought rather to be compared with the
number of unmarried women in child-bearing age.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
