Sweden's model getting the libertarian treatment....

[RadioRaheem84]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDAQWJbEl9U

Americans are really taken in by Sweden's model of capitalist social democracy but of course ReasonTV and the lolbertarians have taken upon themselves to mix up fact with fiction and make it seem like Sweden's true progress was it's technocratic neo liberal turn in the 90s.

Arguments right wingers love to tout about Sweden and why social systems cannot work in the US:

1.) Sweden is a homogeneous country with a very unique culture while the US is diverse. We have too many immigrants, too many people, not enough resources.

2.) Sweden's riches come from innovation in free market reforms during the 90s, not it's extensive welfare state

3.) Sweden has a more trustworthy culture of government than America's bad bureaucratic system. And this cannot work in the USa because we are so culturally different from superior Swedes.

ReasonTV then interviews 2 obviously right wing professors from Sweden who elaborate on the three topics above.

[Skyhilist]

Reason 1 is just basically just saying we have to many brown people to work things out. Typical right wing racism. Although, Sweden isn't really something we should be aiming for anyways. Only the more left wing liberals are really find of it here anyways from what I've seen.

[RadioRaheem84]

Reason 1 is just basically just saying we have to many brown people to work things out. Typical right wing racism. Although, Sweden isn't really something we should be aiming for anyways. Only the more left wing liberals are really find of it here anyways from what I've seen.

I'm really trying to bring up the main reason people use against universal health care and socialism in general. They typically state that Sweden is unique and the culture is what makes them superior or that they have a low population.

Social systems cannot work here because we have too many people, too many immigrants and too diverse of a culture. :rolleyes:

[Skyhilist]

Well you don't have to make it just about Sweden. You can also look at other countries like, say, Costa Rica. They basically have universal healthcare and are doing better than any of the other Central American countries. They're also diverse it in they've got areas that are predominantly Hispanic, predominantly black, and predominantly native, and have also got a fairly large European population.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Sweden sucks more since the reforms during the Swedish banking crisis in the early 1990's, which brought about the arseterity they so much love. So some useless Chalmers and Lund professors can sit and circlejerk about the market however much they like but those pricks are as clueless as anyone when it comes down to it. Sweden's population isn't all that homogeneous, nor has it been for a long time (just consider the number of people of Finnish immigrants!)

The last point obviously has to do with the U.S. political culture and its paranoia about anything called "government" (yet oddly no paranoia about things equally if not more sinister), and though this is not present in the same context, there exists a great deal of cynicism and structural political corruption in Sweden as well, and yes - even here we have those types that call a random less-right-wing than some politicians communist and try to fear-monger about some regulatory or social-democratic policy here and there as being "socialism"; A popular argument in favour of deregulating the pharmacy monopoly was that the only countries that had not yet deregulated that was "Cuba and North Korea", which apparently many found very persuasive.

[AConfusedSocialDemocrat]

That's nice and moderately succesful social democratic system you've got there Sweden. It would be a pitty if something bad was to happen to it, say, a libertarian critique...

[Raúl Duke]

The more interesting question is "Why are lolbertarians doing this propaganda angle?"

I can think of 2 reasons:

1) From what I can observe on the ground, a lot of "potential" libertarians come from US liberals who are anti-war, want to smoke pot, and so on. Back in 2008, the first "Ron Paul" people I've met did not know a single thing about what he stood for in relations to economic issue per se only that he was "against the FED, against the war, and for marijuana." I think this propaganda is geared to attract those liberals who in essence support social democratic welfare whatever (yet hate the nannying of the liberals in regards to guns, drugs, etc) but aren't explicitly aware that they support social democracy by conflating "smart free market reforms" as being the reason Sweden (an example held with prestige among Progressive liberals, social democrats, etc) is the way it is; completely disregarding the history of the Swedish welfare state.

2) Similar to the above, except the rationale being that since austerity in the rest of Europe and the US is equated with bad things they want to create this image that neo-liberal/fiscal conservative ideas can be good as long as done "technocratically/rationally (i.e. US libertarians are very full of themselves; they see themselves as righteous and rational)" and oddly and erroneously use Sweden as an example. They the libertarians know how. :rolleyes:

[RadioRaheem84]

Good analysis. I always wondering why lolbertarians were so interested in Sweden. I guess they had to explain away the social democracy there by insisting that it's free market reforms and a sensible government doing the trick, not the history of the social welfare state.

The second half of the assessment is that even if they praise the model or admit that it's a success, they block any notions of the same model making it in the US by ascribing Sweden's success to culture and homogeneous population.

[RadioRaheem84]

Sweden sucks more since the reforms during the Swedish banking crisis in the early 1990's, which brought about the arseterity they so much love. So some useless Chalmers and Lund professors can sit and circlejerk about the market however much they like but those pricks are as clueless as anyone when it comes down to it. Sweden's population isn't all that homogeneous, nor has it been for a long time (just consider the number of people of Finnish immigrants!)

The last point obviously has to do with the U.S. political culture and its paranoia about anything called "government" (yet oddly no paranoia about things equally if not more sinister), and though this is not present in the same context, there exists a great deal of cynicism and structural political corruption in Sweden as well, and yes - even here we have those types that call a random less-right-wing than some politicians communist and try to fear-monger about some regulatory or social-democratic policy here and there as being "socialism"; A popular argument in favour of deregulating the pharmacy monopoly was that the only countries that had not yet deregulated that was "Cuba and North Korea", which apparently many found very persuasive.

I don't doubt what you're saying at all but do you links that talk about the Swedish model floundering since the 90s. Most economic indicators say it's pretty strong along with the rest of Scandinavia.

[Raúl Duke]

The second half of the assessment is that even if they praise the model or admit that it's a success, they block any notions of the same model making it in the US by ascribing Sweden's success to culture and homogeneous population. I think part of this has to do with the division of the libertarian movement in the US.
One half of the libertarian movement wants to make explicit alliance with the right-wing and associate libertarianism with small-government "state's rights." Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and so on are of this line of thinking; the GOP's libertarian/paleoconservative faction. These people criticize things like the Civil Rights act as "big government." These people will make a "big whoop" about ethnic homogeneity and so on and say "because we got 'undesirables' we can't have the Swedish utopia for everyone; but hey we white people could and just leave the others on the lurch right?!?"

Some libertarians feel that "state's right" is not a libertarian notion and support the idea of a federal government protecting and expanding civil liberties. I think these are more typified by the likes of Gary Johnson and perhaps the official Libertarian Party.


I don't doubt what you're saying at all but do you links that talk about the Swedish model floundering since the 90s. Most economic indicators say it's pretty strong along with the rest of Scandinavia.

Perhaps its relative. Compared to the rest of Europe, they're doing good (the Scandinavian countries) but compared to the past one could say things are changing, for the worst (like the rest of Europe and the 1st world).

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I don't doubt what you're saying at all but do you links that talk about the Swedish model floundering since the 90s. Most economic indicators say it's pretty strong along with the rest of Scandinavia.

Swedish model as in what? Sweden is one of the most deregulated and liberal markets in Europe. Sweden even introduced mandatory voucher-only schools in the early 1990's (all schools are de-facto charter schools), deregulated the electricity market, abolished most significant vestiges of the social-democratic era's "work-place influence", began undoing the influence of the trade union movements, etc. The "Swedish model" accurately refers to the social-democratic era, which is dead and buried. Most major hospitals in Stockholm are private and owned by merchant bankers and venture capitalists, almost all of the former price controls and market regulations have been removed (one of the few remaining is the national rent control which is being undone as we speak in favour of "free market rents").

The fact that the economy as such is not floundering doesn't mean anything: the welfare system has been gradually dismounted since the profit-crisis of the early 1970's. The influence of trade unions which formed an essential part of the social-democratic "Swedish model" has been gradually undermined. Workers from outside of Sweden are no longer paid Swedish wages for work done in Sweden, so are used to exert downward pressure.

What then is your concept of the Swedish model?

[RadioRaheem84]

Swedish model as in what? Sweden is one of the most deregulated and liberal markets in Europe. Sweden even introduced mandatory voucher-only schools in the early 1990's (all schools are de-facto charter schools), deregulated the electricity market, abolished most significant vestiges of the social-democratic era's "work-place influence", began undoing the influence of the trade union movements, etc. The "Swedish model" accurately refers to the social-democratic era, which is dead and buried. Most major hospitals in Stockholm are private and owned by merchant bankers and venture capitalists, almost all of the former price controls and market regulations have been removed (one of the few remaining is the national rent control which is being undone as we speak in favour of "free market rents").

The fact that the economy as such is not floundering doesn't mean anything: the welfare system has been gradually dismounted since the profit-crisis of the early 1970's. The influence of trade unions which formed an essential part of the social-democratic "Swedish model" has been gradually undermined. Workers from outside of Sweden are no longer paid Swedish wages for work done in Sweden, so are used to exert downward pressure.

What then is your concept of the Swedish model?

That there are extensive social services. So what you're saying is that Sweden is doing better now than it was when it's model was alive? Economic indicators say Sweden is pretty stable and going better than most if not all developed nations.

That is unless the bar has been set quite low for what's considered doing well

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

That there are extensive social services. So what you're saying is that Sweden is doing better now than it was when it's model was alive? Economic indicators say Sweden is pretty stable and going better than most if not all developed nations.

That is unless the bar has been set quite low for what's considered doing well

A country can do good "economically" even if its social services are worsening - raw GDP growth: China anyone? So what if people can't afford to go to the dentist--? And even when the provision of social services worsen, i.e. health care, there are pharmaceutical and technological improvements which overall maintain a high standard of health, despite worsening conditions in some situations. So when all the elderly care is privatised and a number of old incapacitated people are left in their own waste for a week without anyone checking in on them, is it really getting worse? When the number of hospital beds has fallen since 1985 by more than half, it's not a worsening, it's just that "there's less need for in-patient facilities", even though they stack sick people in the corridors because the rooms are all full.

[Raúl Duke]

That there are extensive social services. So what you're saying is that Sweden is doing better now than it was when it's model was alive? Economic indicators say Sweden is pretty stable and going better than most if not all developed nations.

That is unless the bar has been set quite low for what's considered doing well

Usually, at the beginning, "free markets" deregulation brings "the goods."
In some instances, newly privatized enterprises do well even better. Particularly in nation-states where previously such stuff was only public.
The problem being is that they're also prey to when the economy does bad.
Currently, all is well.
But eventually it may go very very bad.

The thing about the "welfare state" is that it follows the Keynesian model which is relatively stable to market shocks.

Either way, we're talking about capitalism so whatever; it sucks.

[Tuggback]

What a horrible documentary. The swedish school results are degenerating, the railroad is in a terrible state as well as health care due to the simultaneous budget cuts and privatization that started in the 90s. The swedish economy is better off when it comes to export, but the wage part of the GDP is currently the lowest since before the second world war.

The swedish trust in the state is rapidly shrinking due to the welfare system failing with people being forced into unpaid labour to get their minimum welfare support and other people being deprived of their taxfunded health insurance money despite having grave diseases (like terminal cancer). We also have an enormous housing loan bubble that havent burst yet, but when that happens we will see how it goes.

[Tuggback]

Personally, I blame the social democrats. We may have a liberal-conservative goverment in charge now, but they pretty much agree with each other that selling out all public assets are the way to go.

[Raúl Duke]

Personally, I blame the social democrats. We may have a liberal-conservative goverment in charge now, but they pretty much agree with each other that selling out all public assets are the way to go.

I feel that in a way, it's almost like if material conditions rather than ideology prevailed in the 80s and 90s that lead to privatization, deregulation, etc. In the US, the Democrats under Bush and "New Labour" in the UK continued the work left behind by Reagen and Thatcher; despite one being the party of the New Deal and the other being a labor party.

I wonder why, what precipitated the rise of neo-liberalism

[Red Commissar]

I find point one amusing because bigots (from both the left and the right) in Sweden complain about "massive immigration" all the time from the past 40 years or so, as well as saying the growth of minority communities is a burden on their country. Sweden might not be as diverse as the United States but to say it's culturally homogenous is incorrect. So what ever success they claim to be attributing to Sweden can't be because of cultural homogenity.

Fuck if they want to brag about cultural homogeneity, I hear North Korea is great for that :rolleyes:

[RadioRaheem84]

So the lolbertarians would blame too much social welfare state if shit were to hit the fan.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

So the lolbertarians would blame too much social welfare state if shit were to hit the fan.

They're always going on about "not enough free market", they don't need shit hitting the fan for that.

[Tuggback]

I feel that in a way, it's almost like if material conditions rather than ideology prevailed in the 80s and 90s that lead to privatization, deregulation, etc. In the US, the Democrats under Bush and "New Labour" in the UK continued the work left behind by Reagen and Thatcher; despite one being the party of the New Deal and the other being a labor party.

I wonder why, what precipitated the rise of neo-liberalism

The thing is that the swedish social democrats (SAP) wasnt just a party, they were the party in the 60s/70s. The labour movement could very well have taken the power and turned Sweden into a socialist state in the 70s, but they choose not to. Today the social democrats are a shadow of their former self, in the hand of corporate lobbyists and without any sort of selfesteem. Top social-democrats do some years in politics and then get a nice wellpaid job in the private sector (like for instance former statsminister Göran Persson).

Or, as we say in Sweden: Sossar utan blod, sossar utan märg. Röda fanor, ingen färg!

[RadioRaheem84]

What do the majority of Swedes think about their country?

[aty]

What do the majority of Swedes think about their country?
90% think that the privatizations have been shit according to the opinion polls...

[BOZG]

Swedish model as in what? Sweden is one of the most deregulated and liberal markets in Europe. Sweden even introduced mandatory voucher-only schools in the early 1990's (all schools are de-facto charter schools), deregulated the electricity market, abolished most significant vestiges of the social-democratic era's "work-place influence", began undoing the influence of the trade union movements, etc. The "Swedish model" accurately refers to the social-democratic era, which is dead and buried. Most major hospitals in Stockholm are private and owned by merchant bankers and venture capitalists, almost all of the former price controls and market regulations have been removed (one of the few remaining is the national rent control which is being undone as we speak in favour of "free market rents").

The fact that the economy as such is not floundering doesn't mean anything: the welfare system has been gradually dismounted since the profit-crisis of the early 1970's. The influence of trade unions which formed an essential part of the social-democratic "Swedish model" has been gradually undermined. Workers from outside of Sweden are no longer paid Swedish wages for work done in Sweden, so are used to exert downward pressure.

What then is your concept of the Swedish model?

When it comes to discussing Sweden, one of the big problems that I find is that people misunderstand the size of the welfare state, both in Sweden and abroad. On the hand I think Swedes sometimes underestimate just how miniscule and irrelevant the welfare state is or was in other countries. Even with all the cutbacks, deregulation, bolagisering (is there an English word?) and privatisations, what's left of the welfare state in Sweden is still much bigger. It's hard for people on the outside to see how much has been decimated because the idea of price restrictions in day care, free diapers, free schools and school meals, relatively cheap health care with cost ceilings can only be dreamed about in some countries.

[BOZG]

Economic indicators say Sweden is pretty stable and going better than most if not all developed nations.

What indicators? The Swedish states own indicators point towards continued low economic growth in nearly all sectors, there's high unemployment, areas like mining where there is growth are ultimately dependent on economic growth in China and there's a housing bubble bigger than the one in the US. There is increasing talk amongst commentators and the government that Sweden cannot continue to escape the crisis.

[RadioRaheem84]

What about the argument that Norway and Sweden have small population density and mineral wealth which allows them to pay for social services?

I got a right wing argument today saying that the US cannot afford these programs because we are a large populated nation.

[Creative Destruction]

What about the argument that Norway and Sweden have small population density and mineral wealth which allows them to pay for social services?

I got a right wing argument today saying that the US cannot afford these programs because we are a large populated nation.

That's ridiculous even on the surface, considering the United States is still the richest country in the world, in terms of wealth generated and the actual amount of money we have available to us. The reason why we "cannot" afford these programs is because capital refuses to pay what is owed, and the American government accommodates them. Along with a horrendous defense budget.

If we took the healthcare system out of private hands and nationalized it, it would be far cheaper than it is today, as well if if we implemented cost controls on these gouging medical providers and equipment manufacturers. Aside from that, it would only take $54 billion dollars to make education completely free for all. We have that money, and we'd have more of it if we had a sane tax policy. A socialized economy would be far more cost effective than this bloated, decadent capitalist economy.

Anyway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland all have economies based on things other than mineral wealth. Sweden has a highly diversified economy. Denmark is mostly an info/tech, post-industrial economy. And the Finns are increasingly becoming more reliant on manufacturing and other sectors that aren't timber. The argument that these countries only have their economies because of mineral wealth is absolutely absurd. Most of Norway's wealth is minerals, but it's starting to become more diversified and they've actually saved their oil wealth in order to keep the maintenance of the welfare state. Aside from that, why is that even a relevant or good argument? All economies are based on what resources they extract. It'd be fucking stupid not to do that, so I'm not sure what the point is when these idiots bring that up as if it's some Achilles's heel to the system.

[Hrafn]

What about the argument that Norway and Sweden have small population density and mineral wealth which allows them to pay for social services?

I got a right wing argument today saying that the US cannot afford these programs because we are a large populated nation.

The natural wealth of the United States can't be compared to that of the Scandinavian peninsula. I don't have any exact numbers, but the 'mineral wealth' of Sweden (which adds up to a few dozen mines, many of which aren't profitable) accounts for only a very small portion of the industry, which in turn is only a small portion of the overall economy. I'm not sure about Norway, but I believe - not counting for the oil - that the situation is largely similar, except with a little bit of added coal. Norway's oil does benefit the government greatly, but not to the extent that the entire nation depends on it.

As for population density, overall Sweden has 23 people per square kilometer, and Norway has 16, but most of the northern halves of the countries are very lowly populated.

If anything, the US can't afford it due to low taxes. As Scandinavia gradually decreases taxation, the governments afford less and less.