The current effort to establish computational thinking in compulsory school is not a new agenda. In Sweden, the history starts in the late 1960s with the introduction of computer technology in schools. This chapter explores how the arguments for this endeavour have varied over time and what preceded the initiation of the concepts of digital competence and programming in the subject of Technology and the Swedish national curriculum of 2017. The foundation for this is, on one hand, a scrutiny of four large-scale national campaigns and, on the other hand a review of the Swedish curricula from 1969, 1980, 1994 and 2011. It was found that an underlying political agenda has tightly connected the introduction of “new” technology in schools with the competitiveness of Sweden as an industrial nation.