(Conservative run) Sweden: Benefits agency closes 309 offices

The Swedish Social Insurance Administration, which handles all Swedish pension and sick benefit payments, plans to close 309 of its 330 offices. Customers are to be encouraged to use the Internet and telephone to communicate with the organization.

"Many of our customers have been dissatisfied with long telephone waiting times and long waits for their cases to be dealt with," said Maivor Isaksson, production director at the organization, known in Swedish as Försäkringskassan.

It is planned for Försäkringskassan to cooperate with other state authorities in many 280 communities in Sweden, in order to provide some kind of local representation for the organization.

The plan to encourage more people to carry out errands via telephone and Internet was greeted with dismay by pensioner organizations.

"It is clearly a deterioration when they once again cut back on personal service, like they did before at [Swedish post office] Posten," said Hans Lenkert, secretary general of the Swedish Pensioners' Association, to Svenska Dagbladet.

But Maivor Isaksson said that pensioners would still be able to meet Försäkringskassan representatives. She said that the reorganization would make this easier, as many conversations currently dealt with at the offices would now be moved to the phone lines, freeing up representatives for important face-to-face meetings.

"The customer service lines will have their capacity doubled from 350 to 700 people. We will be open in the evenings, and maybe even at weekends," she said, adding that the aim of the reorganization was to make things easier for customers, as well as to save money.

Isaksson said that jobs would disappear following the reorganization, but she did not yet know how many. She said she hoped the cutbacks would be carried out through retirements, rather than through redundancies.

This particular action by the newly elected, Conservative led, Swedish government isn't about heavy cutbacks on the (in)famous, lavish, welfare benefits of Sweden. It's about reducing superflous and costly administration.

In general, Superflous bureaucracy is a greater problem to Swedish economy than high taxes per se in my opinion.

There are two major aspects to this;

1. If taxes are invested in things like high quality education, infrastructure projects enhancing productivity and groundbreaking R&D, high taxes does not necessarily pose a threat to a sound economical development. BUT, if taxes redirects capital from private consumption and productive private investments to superflous administration, it'll counteract economic growth and prosperity.

2. Sweden of today is the MOST CAPITALIST country in the World, in the sense that Sweden has produced more large multinational coporations per capita than any other country. IF they are to produce even more of well paid jobs on SWEDISH soil, Sweden can't continue to have such a large degree of her labor force locked up in government administration. (Of course, Sweden could let in even more immigrants, but many swedes (even a lot of immigrants to Sweden) are very sceptical to this soulution.

In contrast to many FReepers, I'm not convinced the taxation level (58% of Sweden's GDP as compared to the US one of 33%) is a major threat to the prosperity and economical development of Sweden. In Sweden, the government provides you with (not free, but heavily subsidized, low cost) health care, child care and even pay your kids for attending university instead of you having to pay for sending them there in the first place and furthermore, pensions are financed and administred by the Government instead of employers having to provide these arrangements directly for the benefit of their employees. This, hardly surprising, leads to higher taxes.

If we consult GDP/Capita figures, Sweden and the US are both boasting figures of 40 000 dollars making them two of the richest countries on Earth. From this perspective, it would be unwise to say that The American Way is superior to The Swedish Model.

If we instead consult GDP figures by Purchasing Power Parity, (the GDP measurement most often used by advocates of advocates of neo-liberalism), the US is way richer than Sweden. As GDP by PPP is a re-calculation of plain, nominal GDP, taking consumer prices into consideration (aiming at "revealing" what money actually can buy in a given country), a country where consumer prices are low will gain ground on a country where these prices high when measuring there plain, nominal GDP. This all boils down to the fact that the GDP by PPP measurement as an instrument in order to compare US visavi Swedish prosperity fails to acknowledge that a Swede, indirectly (through a 25% sales tax - leading to a lot of things being more expensive in Sweden than in the US), also get a, comparitively large amount of government goodies into the bargain when buying say, a Volvo XC90 SUV, which is NOT the case to the same degree in the US. In reality both a middle class Swede and an average, middle class US citizen can afford a nice BMW/Cadillac/Volvo, while an average person in Argentina/Russia/Malaysia can not.

"My daughter is attending the University of Uppsala this year. She says because the university education is "free" it is not taken very seriously. Profs are lackadaisical, no real homework assignments, poor instruction, mediocre admission standards, etc. I'm not surprised."

The University of Uppsala prides itself of being the most "conservative" (in the all-accepted, good sense of the word) institution of education in Scandinavia, if not the whole of Northern Europe, Spare Oxford.

As a former student of The University of Gothenburg, An institution constantly found faults with by learned men of The honored University of Uppsala, I wonder why an "intellectual" like Michel Foucault was once their cuddled-up little ward.

"In 1954 Foucault served France as a cultural delegate to the University of Uppsala in Sweden (a position arranged for him by Georges Dumézil, who was to become a friend and mentor). In 1958 Foucault left Uppsala for briefly held positions at Warsaw University and at the University of Hamburg." (source: www.wikipedia.org)

This little swedish detour of his helped him gain acknowledgement among leading scholars of Europe, as The University of Uppsala is among the most esteemed ones of the European Continent.

Why is Foucault admired among leading "intellectuals" of Europe (and other parts of The World) today? Because he failed to admire anything beautiful in life? Like France, Europe, Western Civilization or Education?

While I'm convinced Uppsala in general will continue to produce responsible defenders of Western Civilization, The University of Lund, The University of Gothenburg and not the least Chalmers University of Technology will outperform it.

On behalf of my family and my native country, Sweden; Good luck to you, your daughter and the whole of your family.

Whatever your/her perspectives presently are, I'm convinced Sweden, despite its shortcomings, will do her good.

(Keeping the 33% of the US GDP as well as the 58% of the Swedish GDP in mind)?

Educate me. Do you mean to say that our level of taxation is 33% of GDP, and yours is 58%? Because I didn't think it was quite that bad for us. Anyway, if you cut out the fraud, waste and abuse, I'd wager you that you could cut taxes in half, and no one would know the difference.

Just one example: In my school district there are more administrators than teachers. This is almost impossible, but they manage to accomplish this feat.

A parochial school might have one administrator for every 20 teachers, and do a better job of educating, although they are more likely to expel problem children.

"Just one example: In my school district there are more administrators than teachers. This is almost impossible, but they manage to accomplish this feat.

A parochial school might have one administrator for every 20 teachers, and do a better job of educating, although they are more likely to expel problem children."

Highly skilled members of the national work force of a Western country, like teachers, do not need to be supervised by any "administrators" whatsoever.

My father is a professor of history (although not a university professor by Swedish standards).

My mother is a former professor of North Germanic languages - The Swedish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Danish ones - (for one year she was a professor at university level in the UK, but except for this service, her formal level of employment was equal to my fathers. Today, she has a business of her own while my father earns more money than she does)

If You, or any other intelligent person talked for five minutes to people like my parents, you'd be convinced people like this don't need a supervising nanny to put forward something of great value to young people - or any other admirable accomplishment (and the same goes for my father's 22-25 year old colleagues, although being novices in comparision to him).

Probably, you already are very aware of this being the case all around the Globe.

Education leads to insights. Without insights, we humans are bound to repeat mistakes - and feeling good about it. In other words, we'll take comfort in reproducing staus quo.

Administration is vital to success, but only up to a certain level.

Competent administration of a nation - or corporation - tend to lower administration to a minimum.

Speaking of my beloved Sweden, as well as reaching professional success without simultaneously producing an overabundance of administrative structures, Look at IKEA, a Swedish Company solely owned by a certain swede named Ingvar Kamprad. He's one of the richest (number 4th and not Mr. 1 according to Forbes - because they claim he does't "technically control" all of IKEA himself, well...believe me, he does) and one of the most successful persons on Earth and probably, at the same time, more hesitant of giving power away than any other billionaire.

One day, perhaps 100-200 years from now, "communism" will be a word only experts of History/Philosophy/Political Science know of, while five year old children will know corporate names like GM/Electrolux/Sony - and as consumers of the products of these companies, as co-workers employed by them and as rulers of a society far more educated, prosperous and enlighted than their early 21th century forebearers could ever imagine, will fare very well without PC administration of their existence.

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