Mikael Holmqvist - Leader Communities: The Consecration of Elites in Djursholm

MIKAEL HOLMQVIST

LEADER COMMUNITIES

The Consecration of Elites in Djursholm

Columbia University Press / New York

Columbia University Press

Publishers Since 1893

New YorkChichester, West Sussex

cup.columbia.edu

Copyright 2017 Mikael Holmqvist

All rights reserved

E-ISBN 978-0-231-54539-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Holmqvist, Mikael, 1970 author.

Title: Leader communities : the consecration of elites / Mikael Holmqvist.

Other titles: Djursholm. English

Description: New York : Columbia University Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017006008 (print) | LCCN 2017029210 (ebook) | ISBN 9780231184267 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Djursholm (Sweden)Social conditions. | Djursholm (Sweden)Intellectual life. | LeadershipSwedenDjursholm. | Elite (Social sciences)SwedenDjursholm. | CommunitiesSwedenDjursholm.

Classification: LCC HN580.D58 (ebook) | LCC HN580.D58 H6513 2017 (print) | DDC 306.09487/3dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017006008

A Columbia University Press E-book.

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Cover design: Milenda Nan Ok Lee

Cover image: Photo Bengt Nyman

To Dr. Konstantin Lampou, Uppsala University
A good friend and a discerning critic.

Were the cream of the elite, arent we?

(Fifteen-Year-Old Boy)

This is a high-performance place for high-performance people.

(Man in His Fifties)

My parents always told me, As long as you do your best thats okay. But what does your best really mean? Working twenty-four hours per day? Being good at tennis, golf, sailing, and having five children?

(Man, Thirty-Five Years Old)

I have worked with the richest children in the country. They are very nice, they give me hugs, and they always say hello. But they are very lonely.

(Youth Instructor)

Were up to our necks with diagnosed students. Why not a grade A? Instead of just saying it the way it is, that the student is not good enough or doesnt work hard enough, they produce a diagnosis for him. Once you have a diagnosis, you also have an explanation for a relatively poor level of performance.

(Teacher)

When you give a student the wrong school report, as the student sees it, you first have the students hissy fit, and then the parents.

(Teacher)

Imagine when they find out that Im a fakerI dont know anything! But, you know, everyone worries about that here.

(Woman in Her Seventies)

C lose to where my family and I have lived for the past twenty years, there is a community named Djursholm; a place of beauty, calm, securityand impressive economic wealth. In this pastoral idyll of some nine thousand people located close to Swedens capital Stockholm, there are large houses with extensive grounds; charming, winding lanes, surrounded by a varied and beautiful landscape; and a small commercial center with high-class shops, restaurants, and other services. There are few signs of poverty; people invariably look healthy and beautiful. In addition to the salubrious areas of greenery, the community offers its inhabitants scenic paths for walking along the sea, well-kept tennis courts, a golf club, sailing and nautical facilities, and a plethora of associations providing stimulating leisure activities. The schools are ranked among the best in the country with exacting entrance requirements and unsurpassed grades on graduation. In fact, the inhabitants of this community constitute an economic and social elite, whose position in society enables them to exert great influence over Swedens economic, political, and social development. Possessed of a higher educational level than anywhere else in the nation, the residents work primarily as executives and decision makers in the corporate and financial sectors; but there are also famous artists and academics living there. A number of the countrys superrich who figure on Forbess The World Billionaires list also live (or have lived) there. Income levels are at the top of official national league tables. Property prices are the highest in the country. The alert visitor will note such phenomena as athletic housewives and active nannies, well-behaved and healthy children, as well as expensive and exclusive cars and boatsall of which add to the communitys aesthetic appeal. In the words of French sociologists Michel Pincon and Monique Pincon-Charlot, the place is an ideal example of a beaux quartier , where nice-looking people lead good lives in spacious and well-maintained houses or apartments on the strength of high incomes and large fortunes; greet one another by kissing cheeks; and where foreign languages are often heard, thus making it especially popular with expats, diplomats, or other successful global groups looking for a temporary base while staying in the country.

Like many other exclusive suburbs in both Europe and the United States, this neighborhood was established at the end of the 1800s (more specifically in 1889). The four founders, all of whom were wealthy Swedish businessmen with social prestige ambitions, wanted to create a dwelling place for the countrys economic and social elite, who no longer wanted to live in the noise and disorder of urban environments, preferring instead the peace and fresh air of the countryside. Prior to that, the area had just consisted of pasture and fields and an old castle. The founders were inspired by America, and its utopian ideals set the stage for the project. As soon as the purchase of the estate had been completed, the establishment of the new neighborhood began: large plots of land were sold off with the purpose of building private homes there, but in some instances houses were also built and sold by the four founders jointly owned company. These, as a rule, were substantial and architecturally advanced. One of the first electrified railways in the world was constructed, connecting the area with the nearby city, and all other necessary infrastructure was swiftly provided, including electric power lines, water, and sewerage. At an early stage the founders also had a chapel (funded by American Quakers) and a private school built, the latter an imposing building in which children moving into the area would receive their education. The sizable plots of land (in the region of four thousand square meters per household) meant that only wealthy people could move there. In other words, the community was the subject of a good deal of social planning. The first prospectus was very much focused on the well heeled. Domestic servants and workers only ended up living there as a consequence of their jobs: the community was not intended for them, one writer commented in an article on the place in the early 1900s. In an article from 1940, another commentator suggested that the community has always specialised in the needs of the bourgeoisie, and, to a very significant degree, it consists of academics and other holders of official positions, as well as those who are self-employed.