The state as master by Maria Ågren

Author:Maria Ågren [Ågren, Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Scandinavia, Social Science, Gender Studies, Political Science, International Relations, General, Political Ideologies, Nationalism & Patriotism, Sociology, Urban, Social History, Modern, Renaissance
ISBN: 9781526121400
Google: KXK5DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2017-08-21T00:31:41+00:00

4

The struggling master

On a cold day in January 1747, the customs officials of Örebro were hard at work. Two men were mending a customs fence that had been knocked down by the people assembled in the town during the recent fair. A third was searching a peasant’s cart, while a fourth had gone to fetch something to eat. A fifth man was stamping parcels of tobacco, while a sixth was too inebriated to do anything at all. At this point, a horse-drawn coach approached the entry point to the town at high speed, passing through the customs gate without being properly searched first by the officials. They later claimed to have run after the coach, shouting for it to stop, but their voices were drowned out by the deafening clatter of wheels and hoofs on the street.1

Unfortunately, it turned out that the man travelling in the coach was a merchant and a member of the customs-farming company. He later reported the incident to a customs official in Stockholm. This man, in turn, brought the matter to the attention of the excise court in Örebro. As a result, the customs officials were criticised by their superior, inspector Wigart, for having been remiss, but they defended themselves by saying that they (or at least four of them) had been occupied with other tasks that their job involved. While it could be argued that they could have handled the situation if they had all been at their posts, it is still easy to see the situation from their point of view. The merchant had clearly taken advantage of the fact that they were busy and understaffed.

This case illustrates the difficulties involved in customs officials’ work. It was their job to be at their posts and, like soldiers, defend the interests of the state. But it also hints at some of the difficulties their employer had to overcome. The key concern was to extract as much customs and excise as possible. To do that, control of people’s movements was essential. Officials, fences, gates and informers were some of the instruments used to achieve that objective. Making the control system work was complicated and the state had to struggle to attain its goal. As a side effect of these efforts, the meanings of service started to shift from a personal to a slightly more impersonal relationship.

This chapter focuses on three aspects of the system of control: first, the tangible ways in which the levy of customs and excise was organised; second, the role played by customs inspectors in controlling their subordinates; and third, the use of courts to control both officials and customs payers. Yet, in spite of high ambitions, the system did not manage – or try – to uphold something Weber regarded as crucial to a well-functioning bureaucracy: a strict separation of the private and professional spheres. The lack of such a separation explains how wives could play important roles in the state administration. This will be discussed in the fourth part of the chapter.

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