Rika och fattiga: Klassrelationer och historisk ekonomisk ojämlikhet i Stockholm på 1600–1700-talen

• English summary”Class Relations and Historical Economic Inequality: Stockholm in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”.Erik BengtssonArbetarhistoria, 2020This article describes and discusses economic inequality in seventeenth and eighteenth century Stockholm. I describe the distribution of wealth, using probate inventories from 1650, 1700 and 1715, and wealth tax data from 1715. The distribution was very unequal: the ten percent wealthiest in the population held around 90 per cent of total wealth. I discuss why inequality was so high, focusing on the class structure of the city with a large working class, with quite poor living standards, and small elites of merchants and noblemen, and on the repressive character of the state. I argue that the high inequality was to a large degree shaped by class power, exercised through the state apparatus. I argue that the class perspective is important for the study of historical economic inequality.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi -- Historia (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology -- History (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Ekonomisk historia (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economic History (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

vet (subject category)