Posted on 10/26/2005 1:03:31 AM PDT by F14 Pilot
The Nordic model mixes welfare and economic success, but Sweden's social democrats are at risk from a loss of confidence.
The prime minister has been in power nine years and the people are tired of him. They say their not well-liked leader should have made way for someone else by now. A new conservative challenger to this long-standing government of the left is a young dynamic moderate, uniting the fractious forces of the right. So a social democratic government risks losing to that most lethal human instinct - boredom. The age-old "time for a change" impulse may replace a successful government with something deliberately ill-defined on the right, just for the sake of a fresh face.
Sounds familiar? This is Sweden facing elections next year with the right ahead in the polls - though the gap is narrowing. How can the government of Goran Persson be at risk when by most standards it is doing well? Growth rates are predicted to stay at around 3%, soaring above the EU. Interest rates are just 1.5%, exports boom while its giant companies - Volvo, Ikea, Tetra Pak, Eriksson - are so far resisting the pull to outsource to developing countries. Unemployment is felt to be high - officially 5.8% but higher, counting those on employment schemes - yet falling from over 8% when Persson took over. Public services are second to none, with universal childcare staffed by graduates, schools turning out far more highly educated cadres than in the UK and a good health service (though people grumble here, too, about booking GP appointments). Stockholm gleams in the autumn sunshine with that pride in beautiful streets, public transport, fine buildings and open spaces that proclaim the value of citizenship from every paving stone. With a tax take of 51% of GDP, so they should. What's more, Sweden runs a handsome cash surplus.
How does the Nordic model work? It supports open markets and job flexibility, with all the restructuring employers need to shake out their workforce to match changing demands. But that only wins the backing of strong unions because of the generosity of the benefits safety-net to cushion frequent, unsettling change. This pact between state, employers and workforce is the magic ingredient. Lavish public services and benefits are no add-on: they are the secret to economic success. Cut back the social provision and the edifice totters, which is why the Swedish left is so anti-EU, wary of any supposedly Anglo-Saxon move to interfere.
So why is the government not riding triumphantly towards the next election? There are warnings here for Labour. Somewhere along the line Sweden, and to some extent the other highly successful Nordic economies, have lost their unquestioning sense of purpose and pride. Older social democrats grumble that the young take all this for granted, without realising how exceptional their society is. Bogged down in the daily details of governing, renewing the vision after years in power seems beyond the social democrats. So they are vulnerable to a young Turk declaring himself a moderate on the right. He proclaims that his coalition accepts that Swedes don't want cuts in tax or public services. For at least the first year he has promised no tax-spend changes. Whistling in the dark, the social democrats declare themselves pleased at how far they have pulled the right over to their side of the centre ground. But last time the right was in power, in the early 90s, it did lasting harm to social democratic institutions, things not easily repaired later.
It is curious to observe Blair and Milburn misusing Sweden as an example of a social democratic nation privatising and outsourcing its public services. If Sweden does it, what can possibly be wrong with it, they ask disingenuously. But here is the real story. It was the right that did these things last time they were in power. They allowed selection in schools, which are now far more class- segregated in a country that once prided itself on relative classlessness in education. The right allowed people to set up small private schools within the state sector - almost all used exclusively by the upper middle classes. It was the right that privatised hospitals, though only three - one to a private company, two not-for-profits. So the social democrats find it ironic that Tony Blair brought the manager of one of them into the Labour party conference to prove that even Sweden privatises its health service. The social democrats have managed to pass a law forbidding any company making money out of health service provision: private providers can only get 90% of the state price per patient while, oddly, Labour offers private providers an extra 15%. It was the right that let private providers set up childcare within state provision, mostly less good. The rightwing government lasted a short time, but did what many see as irreversible harm. Blair seems to follow the Swedish right, not the social democrats.
If the Swedish social democrats are in danger of losing the election, it is not because there is any public appetite for privatisation. The right has had to drop all such talk. It is barely distinguishable from the left, promising no tax-and-spend changes, wearing sheep's clothing. The danger to the social democrats is that people get bored. They forget and a new face with new vague promises to cut unemployment seems to be making headway. The right has been in power for nine of the past 73 years, gaining office only when things were going badly. For the right to win when things are going well would be perverse.
But there is a frisson of fear in the national air. The Swedes seem to lack self-confidence, intimidated by global neocon warnings. Despite their strong economy, they worry. Will globalisation strike? Can it be navigated if it does? Where Sweden and other Nordics should boast of an economic model far more successful than the rest of the EU, they seem to be losing their nerve in these the most successful societies the world has ever known. If the Swedes vote the right in they will be like people with vertigo who so fear falling they decide to jump and be done with it. The right has no particular answer to future forebodings, but it is always good at spreading alarm. When the left loses its optimism, it risks losing office.
This is a contest Labour is watching closely. Young Labour ministers have close connections with the Persson government, as they ponder how a long-serving government renews and refreshes itself in office. Good governments can fall if they lose progressive, forward trajectory. The social democrats say they will regain self-confidence and win. Labour, too, needs to guard against spreading more fear than hope.
Yeah. Right. Be speaking Russian or German if it wasn't for the U.S. Yet another welfare state that has relied upon the United States for its national defense. If it actually had to build a real military, there'd be no money for the socialist model it embraces.
The Nordic model is also not appreciably heterogeneous.
America is.
Next.
The Leftists note this reality and then spin it to say that this is why the U.S. shouldn't have any military.
Sounds funny, but it's not. Those idiots are dead serious.
"The Nordic model...
Hahahahaha.
Sverige ping
For a political science class we were asked to design an optimally, socially just government and society.
My design was based on some of Plato's Republic, though not that you'd recognize it.
I postulated two separate societies engaged in a symbiotic manner. The inner society, or the socialist society was one in which those who chose to be taken care of by the government could opt for and voluntarily give up certain freedoms and rights, with the understanding that they could always leave and regain those freedoms and rights.
The second society would be the capitalistic society, full of energy and productive. Now there are always goods that a well managed socialist society can produce cheaper than a well developed capitalist society, one of those being food production, and other more menial tasks.
In the socialist commune - the work day is relatively short at only 6 hours, the entertainment is bland, but variety of goods available is equally bland, but life is otherwise comfortable. You get up, you go to work, you go home to your family. Children raised in this first society would reach their majority at 16, after which point they can choose to leave. Education here is equal to the education in the second society.
As a rule, the first society cannot have the variety or the high lifestyle possible in the second society, but for many whose only goal is to get by in life, it is an idyllic existence. For those who live in the second society, life is an adventure. Self empowerment is the buzzword, and the sky is the limit.
It would be noteworthy that the first society can only vote in local elections and cannot in any way affect politics outside their communes. The second society residents set national policy. If the commune residents don't like it, they can come out of there, work hard, pay taxes and vote.
I Thought it was France!
Next is Palestine!
Sarcasm...
Next is Palestinian! Sarcasm...
Nice with praise, could have come from a different source though.
She didn't like Moderaterna though :-)
She wouldn´t would she? She will though when we win next year and she sees our new policies. The Swedish conservatives have gone through some tough times but the main bulk of the work is now done. We are in much better position than for example the UK Tories.
The Conservative Alliance will win the next election bank on it.
I hope so, even though I still think that Moderaterna, like our own Høyre, basically is just another social democratic party. Albeit, a tad more sensible than the real thing. Just a tad...
That said, good luck with the elections.
It would be comforting to finally see the back of Goran Persson :-)
Cheers.
The most successful society the world has ever known
Nice exercise. But why do you have to impose rules such as lifestyles and election?
What do you call a society, which until now has managed its borders much better than its protector has?
What do you call a society which has for the most part stopped urban sprawl, avoided the horrors of population growth, and maintained a standard of living with a sharply reduced work week?
What do you call a society which for the most part has suceeded in avoiding the advantages of "diversity" and accords its populace a quality of life which compares, shall we charitable say "favorably" with Detroit?
If you do not like the socialism of Skandahoovia, you share an antipathy with me, but you had better first acknowledge the sucesses of a culture which, until recently, has eschewed multiculturalism in application if not in shibboleth and succeeded as well as any culture on earth in provisioning its citizens with comforts and quality of life. We had, both of us, better acknowledge that in a small, undiviersified, educated, society, such as is represented by the Skandavians, many of our assumptions as conservatives are challenged.
Let us answer the challenges.
This is how Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were elected, plus Clinton had the advantage of twice running against tired old men.
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