ARISTOCRATIC WEALTH AND INEQUALITY IN A CHANGING SOCIETY: SWEDEN, 1750–1900
| Autor: | Patrick Svensson, Anna Missiaia, Erik Bengtsson, Mats Olsson |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
History
education.field_of_study Inequality media_common.quotation_subject Probate 05 social sciences Population 06 humanities and the arts Modernization theory 0506 political science 060104 history Politics Agrarian society Nobility Political science 050602 political science & public administration Economic history 0601 history and archaeology education Economic power media_common |
| Zdroj: | Scandinavian Journal of History. 44:27-52 |
| ISSN: | 1502-7716 0346-8755 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/03468755.2018.1480538 |
| Popis: | The role of the European nobility and their ability to retain their political and economic power are part of the debate on the modernization of Europe’s economy. This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the wealth of the Swedish nobility as the country evolved from an agrarian to an industrial economy. We use a sample of 200+ probate inventories of nobles for each of the benchmark years 1750, 1800, 1850 and 1900. We show that the nobility, less than 0.5 per cent of the population, was markedly dominant in 1750: the average noble was 60 times richer than the average person, and the nobles held 29 per cent of all private wealth. 90 per cent of the nobles were richer than the average person. By 1900 the advantage of the nobles’ wealth had declined; the group held only 5 per cent of total private wealth. At the same time, stratification within the nobility had increased dramatically. One group of super-rich Swedish nobles, often large land owners from the high nobility, possessed the biggest fort... |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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