Framstegstankens omformuleringar En undersökning av historieuppfattningar i den socialdemokratiska tidskriften Tiden 1950–79

Abstract

The idea of Progress - the assumption that history is constituted by a series of improvements - has been understood as constituting the temporal orientation of modernity. This thesis, examining the perception of history in the Social democratic periodical Tiden during the years 1950–79, highlights the political role of the idea of Progress. Building on the theorizations of the temporal orientation of modernity by Reinhart Koselleck and François Hartog, it is shown how different formulations of the idea of Progress interacts with assessments of the political situation and with expectations on what the future holds. During the 1950s, economic growth and technical development were in Tiden seen in an optimistic light as the driving force of historical progress, where the development of these factors were expected to create a future of socialism in an almost automatic way. This formulation of the idea of Progress gradually lost its legitimacy when economic growth and technological development increasingly were understood to be in conflict with both human welfare and nature. In a reformulation of the idea of Progress during the 1960s, the historical process was still perceived as predisposed towards socialism, but its driving force were now understood as the will and actions of the social democratic political subjects. During the 1970s, expectation of a disjuncture with a capitalist economy in the near future were tied to the Wage earner funds proposal. As the proposal became a political disappointment, and the political and cultural landscape was reshaped in a neoliberal direction, the idea of Progress was put into question by the authors in Tiden. A shared lack of faith in what the future would bring indicates what Hartog calls a time crisis, and this uncertainty in the temporal orientation was also soon identified as a political problem.