This article describes what it means for the bourgeois state to be precisely that—a bourgeois state—but also the struggle within that state over how it should serve the bourgeoisie. Since the bourgeoisie consists of different individuals who relate to one another as competitors, conflicting factions emerge. This article highlights how these contradictions influence industrial policy, with a particular focus on Wallenberg’s acquisition of the “green” steel company Stegra.
“The modern state is merely a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.”
– The Communist Manifesto, 1848, Marx & Engels
Marx and Engels were already able to demonstrate that the decisive question in every society is which class holds power within it—that is, which class dictatorship prevails—and then how this class, within a panorama of class struggle, chooses to shape the realization of this class dictatorship. Lenin was able to demonstrate how the state’s most important component was its armed forces and, in particular, its army. Mao taught us to distinguish between the state’s class system (which class holds power in the state) and its form of government (how this class organizes power; a liberal-democratic or fascist form of government). Thus, the classics of Marxism teach us that the question of which party holds state power in no way alters its class character.
At the same time, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie organizes parliamentary elections every four years, in which voters decide which party will assume the role of government and which will be in opposition. In this article, we will explain the function of parliamentary elections for the bourgeoisie and how they highlight some fundamental contradictions between different sections of the Swedish bourgeoisie.
THE CHARACTER AND FUNDAMENTAL CONTRADICTIONS OF SWEDISH CLASS SOCIETY
Since the beginning of the 20th century, capitalism has reached its highest stage: imperialism. By then, the capitalist countries had divided up all the countries of the world and reduced the oppressed countries and nations to the status of colonies or semi-colonies (i.e., formally independent: politically “independent,” but economically and militarily subjugated). This created a fundamental contradiction between the capitalist, now imperialist, countries and the oppressed countries and nations.
In Sweden, since then, Swedish capitalism has undergone a process of monopolization, whereby an ever-smaller minority within the bourgeoisie has developed into an imperialist monopoly bourgeoisie. The Swedish economy is dominated by the so-called “fifteen families,” who control around 70% of the Swedish economy. At the forefront is the Wallenberg family, which, according to bourgeois statistics, is two or three times as wealthy as the next richest family and controls around 40% of the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Furthermore, as will be demonstrated in an upcoming article, they control an ever-increasing number of companies beyond what their direct wealth reveals through strategic purchases of Class A shares in companies, which grant them greater voting rights at shareholder meetings than their ownership stake would otherwise indicate.
Through this control over the economy, the imperialist monopoly bourgeoisie can influence public opinion by, among other things, owning 90% of the privately owned media, exerting economic pressure on the state, regions, and municipalities, engaging in lobbying, entering into secret agreements, and holding strategic positions within the state bureaucracy.
They thus stand in opposition to the vast majority of the Swedish people. This contradiction is expressed in the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The nature of this conflict is simple: the bourgeoisie wants to become richer by exploiting the working class more, while the working people want higher wages, lower prices, etc., which would reduce the bourgeoisie’s profits.
THE COMMON NATURE OF THE BOURGEOISIE
The bourgeoisie has common class interests. Its interest is simple: it wants to preserve its own rule and enable increased exploitation of the working class. We can see this in Swedish politics; all parties can unite around militarizing the state, increasing police power, and restricting democratic freedoms and rights.
But furthermore, to preserve its own dictatorship, the bourgeoisie needs to legitimize its rule. The most important aspect of this is influencing the consciousness of the masses. They need to conceal their dictatorship from the masses to avoid resistance and revolt. Here, the lie about Swedish democracy becomes its most important tool. By deceiving the masses into believing that they themselves have chosen and control a system that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, they can hide from all blame and follow the bourgeoisie’s motto of “acting without being seen.”
Lenin wrote in The State and Revolution (1917):
”The way out of parliamentarism is not, of course, the abolition of representative institutions and the electoral principle, but the conversion of the representative institutions from talking shops to “working” bodies. “The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary, body, executive and legislative at the same time.”
In bourgeois society, an individual’s happiness is determined by how much money they have. To climb the social ladder, what matters isn’t telling the truth, but saying what people want to hear—especially if the person in question is rich and can pay you. Among all the thoroughly rotten careerists with only a modicum of oratory skill, it can be pleasant to repeat the phrases the bourgeoisie wants to hear in order to gain a place in the inner circles and secure promising career opportunities. Parliamentarians then become chatterboxes who profit solely from “talk” and “defending their talk,” regardless of the truth.
Furthermore, within the political sphere, they need to conceal the main contradiction in Swedish class society—that between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat—by constantly downplaying the truth about the root of various social problems; that inflation, crime, healthcare waiting lists, racism, etc., are not a result of class society and the increased exploitation of the working class. They do this by paying various types of propagandists, such as opinion makers, PR consultants, journalists, and government officials.
The only times they allow or promote more “radical” measures, such as a “earth-shattering” billionaire tax, this is done solely to capture the most politically aware segments of the frustrated masses and satisfy their need for change through “radical rhetoric.” This is done, for example, with great relish by the Left Party, which intends to form a government with the Social Democrats, the Green Party, and the Center Party under Social Democratic hegemony. The Social Democrats have had every opportunity in the world to introduce a billionaire tax on several occasions if they so desired, yet they have not done so. The Left Party, the Green Party, and the Center Party all act as supporting parties to the Social Democrats and can, at best, influence the wording of declarations: policy follows the status quo.
They then apply the Holy Roman Empire’s method of “divide and conquer” by promoting various proposed solutions to all these problems so that different politicians and opinion leaders believe in different methods for change. This leads different parliamentary parties to propose different ways to solve problems, even though the solution is usually simple and can be arrived at scientifically.
Consider this: If we start from the premise that the social sciences are a science like many other sciences, then it should be possible to apply the same scientific methods to solve social problems as in other scientific fields, such as healthcare. In healthcare, there is a knowledge base that ensures that when a patient enters a ward and speaks with a doctor, the doctor conducts an examination, makes a diagnosis, and then administers treatment that cures the illness. The same should apply to social science problems. Despite this, politicians can discuss falsehoods for days on end on television. Why is that?
Well, this reinforces the illusion that Swedish citizens have a choice. They can vote for one solution to the problem or another, even though campaign promises are usually broken anyway.
It is through this process that the bourgeoisie can open the polling stations, proclaim democracy, and continue their rule. The election becomes nothing more than a spectacle!
THE INTERNAL CONTRADICTIONS OF THE BOURGEOISIE
Although the bourgeoisie shares a common interest in preserving its dictatorship and intensifying the exploitation of labor, its interests also diverge. The individual bourgeois derives his power from his ownership of capital. The more capital, the more power. When the bourgeoisie dominates the labor force, its most important struggle is against one another. Within a given country, the various bourgeois are competitors. If one bourgeois’s business fails, it opens the door for another bourgeois to gain market share. Since the various bourgeois thus have differing economic interests, this means they want different political decisions to realize their individual interests. This allows us to analyze different factions within the big bourgeoisie to draw conclusions about how they wish to influence the economy.
Marxist philosophy, dialectical materialism, teaches us that all things divide into two. When the bourgeoisie seeks to arrive at common legislation or a political plan, they will always gather into two main camps. This implies that there are two main factions within the big bourgeoisie. These are the private-monopolist faction within the big bourgeoisie and the state-monopolist faction within the big bourgeoisie. We will explain the interests of these factions in a simplified way to illustrate a trend. Reality is, of course, more complicated than the following thought experiment, but it will provide a general understanding of the forces at work.
a) Simply put, what are the interests of the private-monopolist faction?
If you own a large stock portfolio and invest your capital in various sectors, you’d prefer as few regulations as possible and for a large portion of the market to be open to investment. Thus, you’d also prefer the state to interfere as little as possible in the market so your capital can grow undisturbed. If investment opportunities dwindle in Sweden, you have no major problem packing up and, like many others, moving your capital abroad. This is the interest of most of the wealthy elite.
The policies that the private-monopolistic faction most often advocates are policies of privatization, cutbacks, corporatization, and ideas linked to “free-market liberalism.” In their world, there is no problem—as has been the case in Sweden over the past 40 years—with squeezing Swedish infrastructure to the point where it no longer functions, as long as someone has been able to make money from it. Their interests are thus short-term and based solely on the immediate growth of their capital, and are not directly tied to any particular country.
To read more examples of this, we recommend a previous article that you can read here.
b) Simply put, what are the interests of the state-monopolistic faction?
Imagine that you are the richest and most powerful member of the bourgeoisie. You would like to curb and hinder your competitors. In that case, you might find it appealing to use the state apparatus to your own advantage to eliminate competition and shape the economy according to your own preferences. You therefore have no problem with the state controlling—and even owning—large parts of the economy as long as you can manipulate this to maximize your profits. Given that you control a large portion of Swedish industry and employ a large portion of the Swedish workforce, you have a strong interest in “business as usual,” ensuring that the infrastructure does not suffer from too many disruptions and that the workforce is capable and does not die off like flies.
Above all, the state-monopolistic faction can impose its own vision on the taxpayers of the entire nation by using the state treasury for its own projects. This allows them to avoid the largest costs—which are borne by the state—and focus solely on reaping the profits. By influencing state laws, regulations, projects, and investments, they can hinder their competitors and benefit themselves.
These two factions are not static. Their interests may sometimes converge on various issues, but contradictions always arise when faced with two different paths to take. Broadly speaking: For the state-monopolist faction of the imperialist big bourgeoisie, the strategic objectives of Swedish imperialism are important since they have invested more in the individual country. Meanwhile, the private-monopolist faction has its eyes on short-term profits and is not as tied to the domestic market.
If you look at the list of the “fifteen families,” it is fairly easy to see that the wealthiest family, the Wallenbergs, more or less dominates the state-monopolist faction, and that many of the others fall into the private-monopolist faction.
A DIVISION OVER THE STRATEGIC INTERESTS OF SWEDISH IMPERIALISM
Given that the interests of the Swedish state-monopolist faction within the upper bourgeoisie are increasingly intertwined with the strategic interests of Swedish imperialism, while the private-monopolist faction has more individualistic and short-sighted interests, the analysis of Swedish party politics becomes increasingly interesting.
Put simply: traditionally, on the one hand, the state-monopolistic faction within the upper bourgeoisie, led by the Wallenberg family, allied itself with the Social Democrats and, through its corporatist structure, secured significant economic dominance over its competitors, while the private-monopolist faction within the upper bourgeoisie, on the other hand, has allied itself with the Moderates, who have made austerity policies their hallmark. Here, it is important not to fixate on this trend but to recognize that there is collusion and conflict throughout the ranks of the bourgeoisie and that money knows no party lines.
We see a clear example of this division within the energy sector. For many years, the Tidö parties have criticized the green industrial initiatives in northern Sweden and called them “wasteful,” while both the Wallenbergs and the Social Democrats have long advocated for their implementation.
The “green” steel production project under Stegra began in 2020. Stegra, formerly H2GS AB or H2 Green Steel, is a Swedish company planning to produce steel using a nearly fossil-free process powered by hydrogen. It was founded in 2020 by Harald Mix (Vargas Holding), among others.
In February 2021, it was announced that the then-H2 Green Steel AB intended to establish a steel mill in Norra Svartbyn in Boden. Steel production was expected to begin in 2024 with a capacity of 2.5 million tons per year. The project is estimated to create 1,500 jobs in the region.
The planned investment in Boden was estimated at 25 billion Swedish kronor. In addition to the steel mill, the investment also included a facility for producing hydrogen. The goal was to produce five million tons of steel starting in 2030 for the automotive industry and white goods manufacturers, among others.
The initial target was later moved to 2027 due to financing difficulties. After all, building a hydrogen steel industry requires a great deal of constant capital and takes a long time before it is actually completed and can turn a profit. This means that the investment is not lucrative in the short term. With such industrial ventures, it is often the state that steps in as a major investor. Why would Stegra be strategically interesting to Swedish imperialism?
The “green” steel production project would make Sweden—and by extension Europe—less energy-dependent than they are today, thanks to the company’s business model of producing steel with up to 95 percent lower carbon dioxide emissions compared to conventional methods.
This had appealed to the European imperialists, especially the Germans, as they had previously been dependent on Russian oil and gas. Russia’s share of the EU’s gas imports via pipelines decreased from around 40% in 2021 to approximately 6% in 2025. Its share of the EU’s oil imports has fallen from 25.8% in 2021 to 2.2% in 2025. Today, approximately 25% of the EU’s oil imports come from the Middle East. The sabotage of Nord Stream 2 and the war in Iran have undermined German imperialism, which is one of, if not the most, economically dominant force in the region. Germany has thus become dependent on liquefied natural gas from the U.S. This is extremely expensive, and the tariff policies of recent years have not made matters any easier. This has caused the European imperialists to fall even further behind U.S. imperialism as well as Chinese social-imperialism.
Through steel production that could become increasingly self-sufficient and less energy-dependent, Swedish imperialism could compete with the Chinese giants that currently dominate the European hydrogen steel market.
So it is clear how these investments in Stegra could serve the strategic interests of Swedish imperialism. But how has the policy been formulated? In March 2026, Jonas Algers and Max Jerneck from the trade union think tank Katalys—a social democratic public opinion-shaping organization—wrote the following:
“Stegra is a massive industrial initiative. The idea is to use Sweden’s abundant energy and mineral resources to produce steel without relying on imported fossil fuels. Several companies have already signed agreements to purchase the steel, including Microsoft, BMW, and Electrolux. The project can help reduce Sweden’s and the EU’s dependence on fossil fuel imports, and in the long term, the facility will nearly double Sweden’s production capacity.
But Stegra has run into a problem: the government’s opposition to green industrial policy.
Public support for industrial investments sends an important signal—that the government believes in the project and wants it to succeed. This is how you can encourage private investors to take a chance. But in Sweden, the government has done the opposite and cast doubt on Stegra’s financing. Even though the European Commission has approved a grant of 265 million euros, the government has withheld half of the funds. The Sweden Democrats have also stated on multiple occasions that Industriklivet should not be allowed to support Stegra—despite the fact that the entire purpose of the program is to allocate funding in a small portion first and a larger portion later, so that projects can mature.
This has created a serious political risk that is scaring off private investors. Furthermore, the government’s inadequate infrastructure policy has harmed the project. For the company to be able to deliver steel, a larger rail line and port are needed in Luleå. But the City of Luleå cannot take on the risk alone and has sought help from the government. Minister of Energy and Industry Ebba Busch stated at the time that “it is unreasonable for something that is very much a national concern to become such a one-sided, heavy municipal responsibility” .
But instead of taking on that responsibility, the government has instead dumped the cost onto Stegra and created a hole in the company’s finances. Since Industriklivet is not allowed to provide further support to Stegra, they cannot even receive partial support for this cost increase.
While the Swedish government is working against Swedish industry, other countries are investing in their own industries. China has used large-scale industrial policy programs to drive down costs and develop its own technology, which now in many cases outperforms that of Europe. The Chinese state-owned company HBIS has already exported hydrogen steel to the EU, and now the company Baowu is set to make a major investment in hydrogen steel linked to offshore wind power.
European governments are also supporting the transition of the steel industry. France’s liberal President Macron has provided the equivalent of 8.5 billion kronor to ArcelorMittal, which recently announced a major investment in Dunkirk. Even the conservative Merz in Germany has increased support for German steel company Salzgitter’s transition to nearly 13 billion kronor. The result is that the Tidö government is holding back while others are investing, which reduces Swedish competitiveness and leaves Swedish workers footing the bill.
Sweden has all the prerequisites for a competitive steel industry: renewable energy, ore, and technical expertise. With an active industrial policy that both provides support where needed and sets requirements for companies to ensure good working conditions and reduce the use of subcontractors, we can lead the EU toward independence and a fossil-free future with secure jobs. However, this requires a government that does not work against Swedish industry and then dumps the risks onto ordinary workers.”
Here we see how the Tidö government—the political representative of the private-monopoly faction within the upper bourgeoisie—views the matter. They regard these necessary government investments as costly and wasteful, since this company will not generate significant profits for individual capitalists. Strategic interests are set aside in order to avoid short-term costs. But what happened next?
Well, on April 14, it became clear that Stegra received 15.1 billion kronor from a consortium in which Wallenberg Investments—and by extension, the Wallenberg family—suddenly became the new principal owners. This came after the Social Democrats had long spoken of the importance of completing the Stegra project, while the Tidö government withheld the necessary capital. Here, it becomes clear how this conflict between the various factions of the upper class is real and influences politics.
Kalle Sundin writes in Aftonbladet:
“When it comes specifically to Stegra, the Sweden Democrats have even tried to force the government to halt state aid that was ready to be disbursed—aid that the EU had already approved. Of course, the idea that the state would bail out Stegra on its own was never on the table, but what has happened is that the government has actively thrown a wrench in the works.
The U.S. and China are pumping public funds into strategically important industries. In Sweden, Jimmie Åkesson’s gang puts a stop to it when the Swedish Energy Agency wants to make minimal investments of a few hundred million.
With an industrial policy like this, it’s important that the Wallenberg sphere exists as a counterforce. It should be clearly emphasized that they are, of course, not engaged in any charity. But they contribute a stability that benefits the majority. These are the kinds of major owners that states and municipalities can join forces with.”
In short, the Stegra deal illustrates how the politics of the bourgeoisie are divided into two camps. One camp believes that Swedish imperialism can become more competitive in the long run and contribute to European self-sufficiency, while the other is short-sighted and forces Swedish imperialism to increasingly trail behind others.
But it was not always a given that Stegra would receive this support. Don’t forget the similar Northvolt project. Northvolt was a company that intended to produce “green” batteries in Norrland. Northvolt’s CEO, Peter Carlsson, spoke through tears about how Northvolt’s bankruptcy—with debts of up to 80 billion kronor—certainly would never have happened if the Social Democrats had been in power! In an interview, he equates Northvolt’s bankruptcy with the Kreuger crash during the Great Depression:
“– In modern times, this is arguably the largest industrial bankruptcy. But of course, it’s hard not to think of the Kreuger crash when you consider the scale of it.”
STATE FINANCES
As the economic brain of the state, the state-monopolist faction within the upper bourgeoisie wants public funds not to be squandered but to flow into its own pockets. This differs from the private-monopolist faction, which is more than happy to plunder every last penny of public funds to open up investment opportunities.
For many years, we have seen, for example in the healthcare sector, how health centers, nursing homes, etc., have been sold off to private owners while continuing to be state-funded. This has led to deteriorating care but also to substantial profits for private operators.
Now, however, the trend has reversed, and it is more common for regions to buy back parts of the healthcare system than to sell them off. This is because the state-monopolistic faction does not want to continue wasting public funds on its competitors but rather seeks a more efficient state administration that can serve Swedish imperialism with good infrastructure and favorable conditions for necessary industrial investments.
We will certainly see more of this process in the future. The state-monopolist faction of the big bourgeoisie tends to come to the fore during times of militarization and war, when the bourgeoisie increasingly needs to unite under a common fist to meet the challenges of the day. Today, we see European imperialism facing increasingly fierce competition from both the West and the East, while simultaneously retreating further in the deteriorating global situation. As all imperialists prepare for world war, greater demands are placed on militarization and war preparations; this entails greater demands for self-sufficiency and, consequently, greater demands on industry.
SUMMARY
The fundamental nature of capitalism does not change depending on which faction holds power. The brutal conditions of exploitation in which the working class is trapped grow harsher by the day. We therefore condemn both factions within the big bourgeoisie.
But since the state-monopolistic faction is more closely tied to the state, the struggle against it is more closely linked to the question of political power. We also know that in a time when all fundamental contradictions are intensifying and the imperialists are preparing for world war, a certain degree of tightening is required within the ranks of the bourgeoisie, and that their plans converge to serve the general interests of Swedish imperialism. In such times, it is precisely the state-monopolistic faction within the big bourgeoisie that becomes increasingly dominant, since it, in many respects, represents certain specific strategic interests more than the private-monopolistic faction. Hence, we rejoice in its constant failures. Its strategy is to enable Swedish imperialism to act more effectively as an imperialist power, and this means nothing more than being better at exploiting and oppressing more peoples.
It is of great importance to expose the spectacle of the election while not turning a blind eye to the contradictions within the big bourgeoisie. It is important that we recognize the various tendencies so that we can better navigate the political landscape and know how best to strike against the bourgeoisie.
We therefore raise our glasses to greater division within the ranks of the bourgeoisie and to a great wave of proletarian revolution!
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