Speaker 1 00:00:05 Hi friends, this is Dick Flax welcoming you to another episode number 26 of Talking Strategy Making History. And this is kind of special in this episode, aka in Sweden sat down with two Swedish social democratic activists, Peter Gustafson and Lisa Stenberg, to talk more deeply than we had amongst ourselves about the political situation in Sweden. You'll hear them talking about what parts of the social democratic model have been eroded in recent years and what is still strong. This is really part two of our look at actually existing social democracy, a theme that we call What's the Matter with Sweden.
Speaker 2 00:01:00 Hey folks. So I'm here with Lena and Peter. We just finished our own discussion for their podcasts. The Folk Channel Folk Canalan about woke and the woke debate and what that means for regular people was a really interesting discussion about similarities in politics between Sweden and the United States right now. But I wanted to ask for our podcast back home for listeners more in the United States. I wanted to talk with you guys a little bit about the current state of social democracy in Sweden. So you've both been activists involved in politics on the left side in, in mainly in social democracy, and you're also Yeah, public intellectuals. You have podcast, you write, um, you try to move the debate. So I think your perfect folks have perfect perspective to talk about, you know, what's living and what is dead in the Swedish model. So let's start with that. Like what, what occurs to you if you were explaining to, you know, someone from, from the outside or even a kid <laugh> about what is Swedish social democracy, what is different about it from, say, a run in the mill, uh, European welfare state? What, what's the special sauce here?
Speaker 3 00:02:16 Well, if I start, I would say some of the special sauce is perhaps the universality of it, that it's very focused on delivering stuff for everyone, not only for the poorest. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, or I should probably say it has been the, especially when it comes to like housing, that's not the case anymore when it comes to health. That's probably still sort of the case. But yeah, universality I would say is one special ingredient.
Speaker 4 00:02:53 Yeah. So yeah, I've been holding lectures on the Swedish model <laugh> a few times. I think you have as well. Well, Peter, the Nordic model. So yeah, there are several parts of it. The model is still and has been, I mean, very firm in having these pillars. Like one is the labor market where we have, you know, the labor unions and we have the, we have the employers and there's always an ambition to keep peace on the labor market. And this comes with a price for the employers that there's negotiations going on in, in wage improvement, but also in other matters that are important for the labor market. So that's one part. And then we have the sort of more welfare part that is everything that has to do with healthcare, school, social security, retirement. I mean, everything you can think about that is included there.
Speaker 4 00:03:43 And then the third part is the sort of more fiscal pillar, which has to do with, you know, in order to have this sort of rich and broad system of public welfare, we have taxation that is sort of financing that. And since all of this, at least at a theoretical level and as it has been, is working brilliantly or is working fine for most people, there's a willingness to also to pay taxes and to, to finance the system. So that's sort of the, I would at a starting point. And then this was built up during the last century, uh, when the social Democratics party was in a great ma majority in Sweden. And this was actually, this was possible to, to move forward quite, quite, you know, quickly and, and also in, in a very broad sense that we could sort of change a lot, which was very beneficial.
Speaker 4 00:04:37 I mean, there's so much proof of this and statistics in, in research showing that this was a very good way not only to sort of lift the poorest to have like a a yeah, a raced sort of lowest, uh, level, but also to have a, you know, a broad sort of middle class. So that was the sort of the basis where we started. And then yeah, through I would say what was not social democratic policies that came into force when the social Democrats weren't anymore, you know, the biggest party. It still is the biggest party, but not in the sense that it had a majority in, in the Swedish permanent, then things started to, to change.
Speaker 3 00:05:20 I think I would add to those three good pillars. I would probably add a fourth one, which is like the popular movement, a very important reason for that. All of these pillars has been standing on, has been a strong popular movement in the sense of like trade unions of course, but also political parties, of course, tenants, movements, cooperatives, all these kinds of like social democratic newspapers. People have been meeting in the local areas. People have been active on a broad-based popular movement way, and that's probably the pillar that has fallen the most. And that is also taking away sort of ground for a lot else.
Speaker 2 00:06:19 There's good, there's a couple things there I wanna pick up on and, uh, and when we can come back to using the, the, the example of housing or looking at housing might be a good way to really dig down into the collapse of all of those pillars in a sense. But, uh, but before we do the, can either of you or both of you take a stab at describing what, uh, say in the 1980s or early nineties say it, uh, at a high point in social democratic policy. What did that mean for a family, for like a a, a regular working or middle class family? What are the, the ways that it impacted their lives?
Speaker 4 00:07:00 Well, like myself and many others in sort of my generation, my grandparents from both sides were workers. My parents grew up in working class homes, but were able to sort of get higher educations and get well relatively well-paid jobs. They were the first in their generation to, or in their, in their families to, to do this. And when I grew up in, in the eighties, this, this was the sort of the normality, we all knew that we could become what we wanted to become. This was nothing that had to do with sort of if you grew up in a house or in a flat or whatever, sort of the, the family background. So it was open to everybody. And there was really a sort of a, a big shift in the early nineties, I would say. And that was, you know, we had a financial crisis, 91, but also we had the right wing government coming into place, 91 to 94.
Speaker 4 00:07:54 And there were big changes in sort of, well, the welfare and, and also there was big unemployment going on, but also everything since then has sort of been, that's when we started cutting down on these welfare systems. And it has been going on since then. So it's, it's quite obvious looking back now for these 30 years that, you know, there has been a decline in, in what sort of the, the investments, so to speak, from the government to upholding this equal, equal system. And those consequences are quite clear, like families that, you know, the parents either didn't have, you know, middle class jobs or maybe just one per one parent was working. Yeah. The, the sort of the, the poverty that we sort of erased in a way decades before that came back slowly. And this is sort of still what we're seeing. So it has been a much more unequal system and it's like becoming more unequal sort of every, every day.
Speaker 3 00:08:57 I guess if you look at the decay, if you're using Lena's, uh, pillars model, you can see that in the labor market is probably the part of the system that has sort of lasted the best, I guess. Even though if you look at some, I mean, we also have, we have these fedora like we have, uh, all these gig jobs, definitely, and especially for migrant communities, this is sort of what you often get into like the, and youth, there is a two-tier system in a way where you have some people who are sort of in the regular labor market and have quite decent, paid, decent jobs that has sort of lasted better than in many other countries. But you also have a gig economy where that is completely a completely different labor market. Then when you go into the welfare system, some of the systems have sort of lasted better.
Speaker 3 00:09:56 But if you look at health insurance, like when the, the pay that you get if you are sick, right? That has decayed quite a lot, especially if you're sick for a long time. If you look at unemployment benefits, it's decreased, it's still decent, but, and if you compare it to the eighties, it's very different and you can look like, look into system after system. You can see some of them have sort of just decayed a bit. As I mentioned, the housing market, that's sort of decayed a lot, but if you see over the whole system, it has decayed more or less everywhere.
Speaker 2 00:10:37 So yeah. Let's talk about housing. One of the things that jumps out at a f that a visitor to Sweden right, is the geography of cities with a, an usually an older, uh, inner city with, you know, older buildings and then a, a kind of ring of suburbs of sort of in what we'd call inner ring suburbs, built in little clusters with mixed use stuff and then like fairly dense big buildings, uh, of apartments where people live. And I remember, you know, when I first started coming here, having it be explained that that kind of housing is still referred to as part of the million program, right? A government program to build a million houses or a million living units, right, for working people, a major achievement of post-war social democracy here. So, you know, there's a lot of people who live in those areas as well as, you know, dense apartments both for sale and rent in the urban core. Why then do, is there a housing crisis? Why do I keep hearing that, uh, there's not enough housing or that rents have gone up, et cetera? Like what, what's the problem you, why not just build more?
Speaker 3 00:11:52 Yeah, that's a good question. I would say like there was a big tax reform in, in the a in the period that Lena mentioned before there was a tax reform where owned housing was, the conditions for owned housing was, was maintained while rented housing lost quite a lot. And then we had a period of sales because like when people want to have to own their housing because of like plain financial reasons, there has been a movement away from, from the rented housing to own housing, which has led to Sweden having the highest rise in the western world of prices of, uh, housing. So, and this has also caused a huge increase in loans. Like if you look at an average middle class Swedish family, they've loaned a lot, borrowing is huge in this country. Uh, the state doesn't borrow that much, but private citizens borrow a lot and that's a, actually a financial risk for this country as a whole.
Speaker 3 00:13:03 And then you had right wing councils selling out rented apartments to the people living there at the moment, like Thatcher did very similar. And also the estate tax was taken away in the early nineties. So you have like a series of different reasons that have led to a situation where, yes, there, there are houses built, but they are often expensive and often sort of more luxury homes while there is no not much built for ordinary people and the, the housing that ordinary people could have been living in is now owned by someone who, uh, owns it for sort of who has speculative, this is sort of a part of the speculative economy.
Speaker 4 00:13:54 Well, interestingly, because this is sort of part of a whole of a sort of a, a really, you know, visible and, and big change in, in systems because I mean, previously as we talked about social democratic sort of, he hegemony social democratic hege, there was, um, you know, that was the way, you know, everybody sort of had to adapt to that was the way we, we sort of had run this country when the Swedish sort of the neoliberals, the sort of more right wing, uh, parties started to sort of gain in, in, in, uh, popularity. This change is, it's sort of, I don't think you can really sort of, um, compare it to any other country in how, how, how fastly it changed in the sort of theoretical sort of incentives and sort of wanting to sort of yeah, go in the complete opposite direction mm-hmm.
Speaker 4 00:14:51 <affirmative>, and you mentioned Thatcher, I mean, going into the direction of sort, sort of privatizing everything, everything should be up to the sort of the individual to, I mean, to take responsibility to make choices. So everything was supposed to be the total opposite to the social democratic system. And I think in a way it was, it was became popular among many Swedes because, you know, they've had this social democratic order for many decades and I mean, there were people who are sort of tired of it or, you know, wanted to try something else. And so these changes that, you know, one part was the labor or the sort of, sorry, the, the housing market, but then we had sort of the, the school system that is like, it's, it's really extreme in a way when you tell people that in Sweden we have, well, they're private schools and they're publicly funded and they, you can actually sort of become, uh, rich on running schools in Sweden while you sort of invest less in the education system for the children. I mean this is a, sorry. Yeah, so sorry.
Speaker 2 00:15:54 So we would call it's a you have a voucher system Yeah. Is is how it would be described in the United States where people's tax money goes to a private school and that private school can be run for profit, right? Yeah. Um, or a or be like a religious school right. Or anything. Right? Yeah. And that's siphoned a, I mean exactly why people oppose it in the United States, it's siphoned a ton of public resources into private schools. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:16:17 It's like, it's almost like a fixation on, on being so liberal that you can, I mean, can you be more liberal in the way that, you know, it should be up to everybody to choose and you should not interrupt in that. So this sort of, this system when it was launched in, in the nineties, it's been going on. I mean, we are the only country in the world having this system and except for Chile, no, they, they took it away actually. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh. So we are the only country in the world, and that's just part of this, I mean we're, we're seeing this in other, in other parts of the welfare as well. So yeah, you have to understand this sort of the, the shift in the debate in a way, but also the shift in sort of the, the thinking of, of how society should be, you know, run and, and therefore also like when, when you can, well the incentives to also to buy your own house that's like, it should be financially beneficial to, to buy your own house instead of renting a house or an apartment.
Speaker 4 00:17:15 And I mean, this theoretical idea has become so important for, for the right wing, the, the neoliberal parties in Sweden that, I mean, no matter to sort of what the reality looks like, no matter what happens, because we have seen that Sweden, the gaps between well the rich and the poorer are, you know, growing and we have have the growing fastest growing gaps in the whole of O E C D, which is Yeah. Which is uh, terrifying. Yeah. Uh, but still we are doing this because it's so important that this model has to be implemented no matter the costs.
Speaker 3 00:17:52 Yeah. We also have a voucher system when it comes to healthcare. So the Stockholm region has been under right wing control for 16 years, which means that the sort of most sort of left wing area of the central city sural actually has zero zero health clinics, public health clinics. It's only private health clinics. You can't choose to go to a, a public health clinic in Sural. The only place you can go to is the sort of vouchered. This also has the consequence that a lot of si public money is siphoned into the inner city instead of used for supporting the people with the largest health needs who are often living in the outer city. So, but this is, yeah, this is all ideology. This is how the Swedish Right. Has has managed to sort of transform a system that is sort of based on the public, strong public sector by sort of use the public sector money to channel it into private companies running like schools, hospitals, uh, elder care centers, et cetera.
Speaker 2 00:19:11 Yeah. So one thing that you said that, uh, stuck out at me and is really interesting is the, the fourth pillar, as you said, the the participatory part of it, that so much of the system is based on replacing a market mechanism with a negotiated mechanism with a democratic one or something like that. Right. And this is, I think where people who identify as socialists have always looked at the Nordic model as a bridge to a different kind of economy, a different kind of society. Especially if you compare it to a place like the United States where market, like all you have to say is let the market take care of it. And you've sort of won the debate. So, you know, for example, you have, you don't have a minimum wage, correct? Right. The wages are negotiated like by sector, by sector, sure. By the, the unions and the employers. And then let's say a wage is set for, you know, stage hands, people who work like behind the scenes. Now, does that mean that anyone who works as in, in that job anywhere in Sweden will be paid what's negotiated and, and have those conditions? Or does the employer have to the specific employer have to agree to the agreement
Speaker 3 00:20:26 The union would need to go on strike to make sure, I mean, if if the employer doesn't follow the, doesn't sign the treaty, you would need to make sure the employer does it and then the strike is sort of the final weapon to use.
Speaker 2 00:20:42 Ah, so you'd, so it's negotiate the, the agreement then if there is an employer that's not signed on, then you use industrial action, political pressure, et cetera. If you get them to sign on if needed is the idea, yeah. If need. So, right. Which is a like, I think a surprise for trade union oriented folks back home, right? Where like you, we've always fought foreclosed shops and where, you know, the, the employers and employees have to, you know, be part of the agreement, et cetera. But so are there sectors or industries in Sweden now where there are lots of employers that are not signed onto a collective bargaining agreement? Or would you say that it's still covers a lot? You know, most people,
Speaker 4 00:21:25 I mean there are, Peter mentioned the sort of the whole gig economy and there are those kind of jobs that are sort of on the margin. I mean, are they included in, in these kind of deals or not? I don't know if I can sort of answer to exactly how that works, but I mean also if you're a temporary worker, if you are, I mean there's all kinds of sort of, you know, matters that are not sort of in the ordinary situation that is not included, I would say in the same way. But I mean in general, yes, it should be. If you have an agreement, that is what's supposed to be the reality.
Speaker 3 00:22:00 What often happens when sort of new industries come. And also when many Americans coming to Sweden, many American companies coming to Sweden think that they can come here with the American model. And up until now, uh, Swedish unions have been quite successful in saying, Hey, you're in Sweden now. So it took McDonald's a couple of years to sign a collective bargain treaty, but they did, it took to toys ar us, it was a quite big fight in the 1990s for toys ar us to sign a collective bargain treaty, uh,
Speaker 2 00:22:39 On strike, r a p Toys Rx.
Speaker 4 00:22:42 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're gone.
Speaker 3 00:22:43 Oh yeah, they're gone. Too bad. <laugh>. Uh, yeah, I mean they signed the treaty, so I mean, you can go, you could have gone shopping to them, but I mean now of course the, the big thing, and I guess that's sort of with Uber and, uh, fedora, which is, I dunno if Fedora is an American company or not. Oh, I
Speaker 2 00:23:05 Don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 00:23:06 Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:23:07 Yeah. Who knows. Yeah. So whatever any of that means anymore.
Speaker 3 00:23:09 Yeah, exactly. But but they
Speaker 2 00:23:12 It's from capitalism that, that country, that company.
Speaker 3 00:23:14 Yeah, exactly. It's from Capital. Exactly. Yeah. And, and they, they sort of use models that are like very different from a collective bargaining model now, like unions are trying to sort of get it into the system and sometimes they, they come, you know, like Fedora has a, a treaty, but it's sort of a mini treaty in a way. Uh, there's still some problems with it, but I think their idea is to sort of get them to sign a treaty and then improve it eventually. So there, there's constant, there's a constant struggle going on to sort of make new companies coming, like sign treaties and sort of go into the system.
Speaker 4 00:23:59 I think it's interesting when you said that the, but the pillar, I would say that it's the strongest still. It's probably this one, the one concerning the labor market. And interestingly, that's where the politics are absent. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, so you sort of started off in this episode talking about the institutions, and I think that's really relevant here. This model of negotiation. It's, it's, it's beneficial to both parties. Nobody, I mean within these, the, the parties, nobody wants to take it away. This is the best functioning that we have when it comes to politics. It's, that's changing. And that's why I would say that the welfare system, but also other, yeah, like the housing and, and this very, very rapid individualization marketing privatization that has gone so quickly while on, on the labor market. This is still working. I mean, there are obvious problems. I'm writing and working a lot on gender equality. Uh, the gender wage gap is, is big <laugh> at the same level as 95. So nothing really has happened there. So there are obvious problems, but at, at sort of keeping the labor market functioning and sort of out of, I mean it's very, very rare that we have strikes in Sweden. It's really rare because we are sort of, we're having this system that that is sort of well makes everybody sort of not very happy but, you know, happy enough to, to go on. Hmm.
Speaker 2 00:25:26 Happy enough to go on. I like that. But we should, that feels like that could be a party slogan or something. <laugh> an electoral slogan. <laugh>. Well, another thing that, that jumped out at me that was so fascinating is it's not just, uh, working conditions or, you know, labor, the labor world where negotiations take place, but also like between the tenants union or the tenants association and like guess people who own housing where there's rent negotiation. And there was a recent, there was the last time that we were in power till, you know, up until the last election. A bit of a political Yeah. Scuffle about it right on the left. Can you tell, uh, our listeners a little bit about that? I, everyone, uh, who listens back home I think is especially interested in these housing questions and the issue of tenants rights. So how, I mean, how did that play out?
Speaker 3 00:26:18 Yeah, I mean, exactly as you say, we have a system of negotiated rents where sort of the public housing authority sets a rent that is also authoritative on the whole housing market. So the private renting companies have to adapt to the rents set by the public authority. Then there are, uh, special courts where you can go to and say that this, this is too high, my rent is too high. And then the sort the, the, the court can can take it down and so on. And then this whole system has been in recent years in debate and there is this discussion on market rents. And the argument from the right is of course, that this was, would lead to more housing being built, which is very doubtful that it would happen, especially as this is very much on the old existing housing that has been there for a very long time.
Speaker 3 00:27:20 So it's a weak argument. But this has been a strong position for the center party, which is, even though its name is the center party on economic issues, it's very right. It's very much on the right. And they, they, they want market rents strongly. That's, that's one of their positions. So when the far right has been increasing in power in this country, there has been a big debate on how much can you, like, how can a government be formed? And after the last election, 2018, there was four months of negotiations until there was finally a new government led by the social Democrats in coalition with the center party. And in order to accept for the center party to accept a social democratic prime minister, the social Democrats has to had to, uh, accept, uh, market rents. But what happened after that was that the left party who was sort of left out of the negotiations but was still needed for a social democratic prime minister, they actually said that, no, we won't support if, if they introduce market rents, then we won't support the social Democrat Prime minister. So there was a government crisis that led to finally actually that this proposal was taken back. So we still have the negotiated rents.
Speaker 2 00:28:52 Well really appreciate this discussion. I think we've covered quite a lit a bit. I want to give you both an opportunity though to give our listeners some advice. Like, uh, you know, I make a living giving you guys advice in a way. And, and I think there's always a kind of assumption that the US is so big and, uh, advanced in so ways, so many ways that there's things to learn there and so forth. I've always thought it works both ways. What kinds of inspiration, policy focus, uh, rhetorical strategy, anything do you think American progressives can learn from the Swedish experience? Oh, they're making the funniest faces right now. <laugh>,
Speaker 3 00:29:35 I, I used to be one of those who really thought that, oh, in Sweden, in Sweden we have a system <laugh>, you know, but like with all these changes taking place in the last decades, I'm, I'm less and less, I don't think that we have very much to teach anyone else anymore. Well,
Speaker 4 00:29:52 Um, I would say that, I mean, cuz we are, we are still very good at is I would say the labor market is, is a very good example. There are flaws, there are things that could be better with the Swedish labor market and, and everything. But just knowing that it can work, it can work. And I would say that yeah, there, there probably wouldn't need to be big changes in your country to make adjustments or, you know, become more like the Swedish labor market. But at least like there are parts that you could probably sort of look at. And, uh, yeah, because I would say that what is sort of the, the key here is that this system works for all parts. I mean, if it would only be useful for, to say the, the labor unions or the workers, that would be one part.
Speaker 4 00:30:38 But this is actually beneficial for, I mean, not only the companies and the sort of the employers, but also for the, for the GDP of, of the country. I mean it's really, it's really beneficial. So I would say a lot that, you know, the Swedish is a big exporting country. I mean, a lot has to do with that. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we are very stable, our economy is stable because of a very stable labor market. And that is very much thanks to the, thanks to the, the Swedish or the Nordic model, which is the social democratic model. So,
Speaker 3 00:31:09 So if I would be a little more on the optimistic side, then I would probably then argue for the universal welfare state to sort of not focus on, only support the poorer parts of the community, but actually say that schools, hospitals, insurance systems, pensions should be, housing should be good for everyone. And if the public can, there, this old saying, and that's the best that I got, only the best is good enough for the people. If you can sort of follow that sort of idea, you can actually construct now. And I guess that's also, I guess what's also the best in the American, like the new deal. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> part of like the systems that are most difficult to take away, I think is often the, the, the systems that are so designed that they, they're, they are good for a, a, a majority of the people. So,
Speaker 2 00:32:14 And also the hardest to attack, right? Yeah. You know, the, the Republican right loves to talk about privatizing our social security system. It's definitely like on the wishlist for their vanguard, but they, I mean, they never get anywhere close to it because it's too popular. So, no, I think those are great lessons. I think it's good for all of us to be a bit humble in these days. Like nobody's model, so to speak, we put it that way, is, is looking impervious or perfect at this point. And we're dealing with a lot of the same threats to our democracies, uh, and to civil and, and human rights. So, you know, I think it's appropriate that, you know, none of us walk around like we've got the Oracle, but I really appreciate those, those comments and also the lesson that the, some of the, the core elements of a socialist project are both is universality and a po like power for workers at the, at the table to actually, you know, negotiate and set, uh, terms of the economy. So, um, I like that a lot. Well, thank you both so much for your time and, um, thank you. Look forward to, uh, continue talking and working. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 00:33:27 So that concludes episode 26 of talking strategy, making history. What's the matter with Sweden AKA Lamaha. There he was in Sweden having a conversation with two activists leading figures in the social Democratic party of Sweden, Peter Gustafson and Lena Stenberg. And incidentally, they interviewed Daka on their podcast, which they call the People's Channel. And we'll make that a link to that podcast available to you on our patreon.com/tsh website. If you go to that
[email protected], you have a chance to su subscribe to this podcast and we will be offering some additional bonus materials for you if you become a subscriber to what we are doing here. And if you like what we're doing here, why don't you spread the word about it, get other people who might be interested to be aware of talking strategy making history. I'm Dick Flax speaking for myself and aka we'll be back not too long from now. But let's close our, what's the matter with Sweden by playing a bit of maybe the leading Swedish workers' anthem, a stirring song from the past that may hopefully once more inspire action in the present and beyond. Thanks for being a listener here.
