The dominant political idea of the twentieth century in Sweden has been the folkhem, the vision of government as a home that protects the nation's people much as a family's home protects each of its members. Like the New Deal, this vision introduced the idea of an active and protective government to a nation that had previously embraced a much diminished role for the state in the welfare of society. However, unlike the New Deal, the folkhem provided a rhetorical foundation for what became the most evolved welfare state among the world's democracies. T h e evolution of such a sweeping policy agenda did not happen without political struggles and social conflicts, yet these periods of turmoil are often overlooked by observers who see Swedish Social Democracy as more consensual than conflictual. We argue that it is precisely the overriding rhetorical direction provided by the folkhem idea that enabled leaders to t u rn potentially serious conflicts into remarkable levels of consensus for roughly half a century. In this sense, the alternative views of conflict and consensus in Swedish politics represent a false dichotomy that can be reconciled only by understanding the pragmatic uses of this grand political symbol. Similarly, the recent discontent of voters can be understood less as a return to some sort of class conflict or as an abandonment of consensual politics than as a growing failure of the folkhem vision to offer new solutions to today's changing political conditions.