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Democratic Socialism in Europe: The Case of Sweden, 5/1/07
Key Lecture Points:
• Social welfare is squarely on the American political agenda. Debates over universal health care, private Health Savings Accounts, new Medicare programs, the privatization of Social Security, declines in employer-provided pensions, and the debt crisis among college graduates all illustrate growing concerns, from many quarters, about the state of the US social welfare system. It appears as if these socio-economic issues will be important aspects of the 2008 Presidential campaigns in the US.
• In a January 2007 speech in Washington, Barack Obama stated: "In the 2008 campaign, affordable, universal health care for every single American must not be a question of whether, it must be a question of how. We have the ideas, we have the resources, and we will have universal health care in this country by the end of the next president's first term." Hillary Clinton specifically references the working class on her website, noting that, “For six long years, it's like America's middle class and working families have been invisible to our president. He's looked right through them…” She goes on to promote universal health care, affordable education, and other social programs.
• John McCain, Republican frontrunner, notes on his website that, “Promises made to previous and current generations have placed the United States on an unsustainable budget pathway. Unchecked, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare obligations will grow as large as the entire federal budget is now in just a few decades. Without comprehensive bipartisan reform to America's entitlement programs, the nation will be unable to meet the challenges of providing vital medical and social security assistance to future generations.”
• Given this recent interest in welfare programs, Americans have naturally become curious about social welfare programs in other countries. Swedish social welfare has captured international attention for its generosity, broad range of benefits, and its popularity among the Swedish people. Formed in the wake of WWII, Sweden’s modern social welfare system looks decidedly different from the American one that formed in the wake of the Great Depression.
• For all of its successes, Swedish social welfare system is also facing significant problems. Immigration, population changes, European integration and globalization are all putting new pressures on the welfare system.
• While the US and Swedish social welfare systems are both 20th century phenomena, their ideological underpinning comes from a much older democratic socialist tradition. Taking shape during the Industrial Revolution in Europe, democratic socialism pictures an egalitarian society in which economic differences based in class, race and gender are eroded through the redistribution of wealth. Democratic socialism was a presence in the US in the late 1800s and early 1900s, with its ideas influencing the New Deal policies of President Roosevelt. In Sweden, the Social Democratic Party has controlled the government for 61 of the last 70 years.
For More Information:
• The Swedish Social Democratic Party, information sheet (in English): http://www.socialdemokraterna.se/upload/Internationellt/Other%20Languages/TheSwedishSocialDemocraticParty.pdf
• The IMF on Swedish social welfare: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/nft/2003/sweden/index.htm#fig1
Books For Further Reading:
• Swenson, Peter. Capitalists Against Markets: The making of labor markets and welfare states in the United States and Sweden. Oxford University Press, 2002. 448 pages.
Description: This academic-historical look at social welfare in the US and Sweden argues that capitalists and businessmen, as much as workers and progressive leaders, influenced their creation and form.
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