Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking. Login or Take a Tour!
Looking back, what can be learned from the rise and fall of Swedish social democracy? This article presents a history lesson of the (complicated) relationship between the social democrats and the radical left, and some ideas on where to go from here.
- Second, the Left must devote significant intellectual and organizational attention toward the development of a plan for the socialization of investment. This is the only way to overcome the welfare state’s dependence on capital.
Unlike the wage-earner funds proposal, such policies for socialized investment must be directly tied to pertinent issues – welfare, housing, sustainability – that can mobilize people beyond the trade union movement.
Failure to address these issues has turned socialist movements that aim to change the world — from the Swedish Social Democrats to Syriza — into state managers whose electability depends on their ability to maintain business confidence.