Swedish social democracy: At the crossroads

Abstract

The 1976 election in Sweden brought an end to forty-four years of virtually continuous control of the government by the Social Democratic party [ 1 ]. Throughout the world many looked upon Sweden during these years as some sort of realistic utopia a "middle way" between capitalism and communism and a model of social and industrial tranquility [2]. Especially outside of Scandinavia, it was often thought that the strong position of the Swedish Social Democratic party had produced a socialist society in which private enterprise was particularly circumscribed. Yet approximately ninety-five percent of industry remained in the hands of private enterprise and the recent program of the Social Democratic party itself refers to the "present concentration of economic power in private hands" [3 ]. In fact, the Social Democrats neither sought nor received a mandate for the wholesale reform of society. Nevertheless the Social Democratic party does consider itself to be a socialist party. Swedish Social Democrats define "pragmatic" or "functional" socialism as meaning that society regulates the functions of ownership by laws concerning what owners may or may not do. Their principal targets were full employment, a fairer income distribution and industrial democracy. Indeed they had a large measure of success in building up a Keynesian welfare state which reformist labour parties all over Europe looked to as a model. In the face of the worst recession since the 1930's in the rest of the capitalist world, the Social Democrats were able to reduce unemployment from 2.5 percent in 1973 to 1.6 percent in 1976 [4]. It can be fairly said that the Social Democrats changed the "character" of Swedish capitalism. Marxists generally categorize societies in terms of whether they are capitalist or socialist but this should not lead us to the assumption that there are no differences between countries within these socioeconomic systems. As we shall see, there are few grounds for maintaining that Sweden transformed capitalism beyond recognition. Nevertheless it is necessary to recognize that Sweden is by no means simply another example of "pure capitalism". Possibly, the most prevalent image of Sweden is that of egalitarianism. A systematic comparison of the pretax distribution of income in European