
On the Far Right Past of Ingvar Kamprad, Founder of IKEA - martey
https://lithub.com/on-the-far-right-past-of-ingvar-kamprad-founder-of-ikea/
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Neil44
People are allowed to have a past, I don't see that it's that relevant to IKEA
today.

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lnsru
Indeed. Let’s talk about modern IKEA and it’s modern tax avoidance methods:
[https://medium.com/@jurgeng/ikeas-tax-scheme-a-corporate-
str...](https://medium.com/@jurgeng/ikeas-tax-scheme-a-corporate-structure-
designed-to-facilitate-profit-shifting-and-tax-avoidance-798caf842fb6) and an
extremely poor quality of their products. They are made from paper and breaks
already during assembly.

~~~
surelyyoujest
"Extremely poor quality". If that was remotely true why would they be
successful? Millions of people are just dumb and just enjoy having shitty
furniture and go back for more? Have you been to a real IKEA beyond the
imagination of your anti-corporate dream?

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Yetanfou
A far more interesting book on the subject of the way Sweden-the-country and
many Swedes handled in the years before and during the second world war is
Aron Flam's _Det här är en Svensk Tiger!_ which is the written-down version of
his netcast essay series under the same name [2]. In it the author lays out
the way the Swedish social democratic party together with the farmer's union
(Bondeförbundet, the predecessor to the current 'Centerpartiet') set the
country on a course of racial purification which ended up being a source of
inspiration to the German national socialist party. The country denied the
Norwegian royal family passage when they tried to flee the invading Germans
while allowing those same Germans to use the Swedish railway network to
transport troops to Norway. How Swedish iron but also Swedish technology in
the form of SKF ball bearings were instrumental in building the German
invasion forces. The allies tried to buy up the whole supply of SKF bearings
to keep them out of the hands of Germany but SKF found a way around that as
well through a German subsidiary.

Sweden has never really made up with this part of its past like Germany has.
It is very likely that this hidden past is one of the driving factors behind
the way the country tries to portray itself as a 'humanitarian superpower'
with a self-assigned responsibility to spread its particular brand of morality
to those considered to be in need and an often reckless obliviousness in the
way these policies do harm both at home and abroad.

The book is thus far only available in Swedish, as is the netcast series. It
will be translated eventually for those who do not read Swedish but since many
of the subjects it touches were already known outside of Sweden it is less of
an eye-opener outside of the country.

[1] [https://www.aronflam.com/merchandise/det-hr-r-en-svensk-
tige...](https://www.aronflam.com/merchandise/det-hr-r-en-svensk-tiger-av-
aron-flam-1)

[2] [https://soundcloud.com/aronflam/](https://soundcloud.com/aronflam/)
(search for 'svensk tiger')

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sexydefinesher
While we could have another attitude towards it, most Swedes are well aware of
the contributions to the German war effort through industry and trade.

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wolco
Does anyone get a black screen when they first load the page and content
appears after scrolling one pixel down?

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rpmisms
Okay? Interesting history, but this is like saying wearing Hugo Boss clothing
is akin to operating a not-for-profit gas chamber.

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jjellyy
Politics ??

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timwaagh
so that's why Ikea are being so blue-and-yellow all the time. Rather
interesting origin story considering their very swedish branding. All the
other Nazi-complicit companies at least bothered to hide this aspect. No
german imaging from Hugo Boss (named after the founder, a Nazi). Ikea hid in
plain sight by going all in on the nationalism.

