Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 06:12:45 -0400 From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki) Subject: M-I: Radiotime Sweden The following is a final draft report for Straight Facts Radio on Sweden taped on September 6 1997... Good Evening. This is Bob Malecki reporting for Straight Facts somewhere in northern Scandinavia quite near the Polar Circle! Sweden! With the Swedish elections only a year and a half away one would be surprised when I say that the election movement has already begun! What has sparked this early start to the election movement is the latest polls which continue along the trend of a classical left-right polarization taking place in this former Swedish "welfare" state of the social-democratic model. The latest pre-summer polls give the social-democracy 27% of the vote, a historic low that NEVER has been seen in the history of opinion polls in this country! The right-wing conservative party has for the first time in history become the largest party in Sweden (with 34%). And the Euro-Communists who have historically been a 4% party have a consistent 14 to 15 % of the vote. It is these three parties which show the significant swing "left-right" in the thinking in this country. With these kinds of interesting opinion polls related to the dismantling of the welfare state by the Social Democracy with the good help of its "closet" coalition with the bourgeois Center Party (a party whose base is in the farmers and large rural areas of this country) we are already seeing the various actors starting to line up and kick off the election movement -- although the Social Democrats like to call their backroom deals with the Center Party "taking responsibility in a very difficult time" ... Much of the "left-right" polarization in this country is linked to the debate of the "new" and "old" Social Democracy -- the first being the present leadership of the Social Democratic Party, sometimes known as the "government house right", which has deserted the workers movement for the middle class and open collaboration with capitalism in trying to smash the trade union movement, downsizing the public sector through cuts and privatizing, and making permanent mass unemployment where nearly a million Swedes are on the dole.. Naturally they are doing this in the name of saving Sweden from the horrible excesses made during the "roaring 80s" where the yuppie economy and banks almost brought the country to economic collapse. In fact the policies of the Social Democracy in power with its "closet coalition" partners not only bailed the yuppies and banks out at the minimal cost of 95 billion tax bucks but also loaned a couple of three hundred billion bucks on the International market. All of those who were on the verge of economic ruin are today the most profit-giving and expanding economies in the whole market! Especially the banks, where just recently one bank which just a few years ago was on the verge of collapse has now made a cash bid to buy up the entire state loan institute which historically financed 35% of the entire Swedish home market! And if these people have gone from economic ruin to swimming in champagne, thanks to the "new" Social Democracy, then the other social group who has done all right under this period is the central social base of the closet bourgeois partners of the social democracy in power, the farmers represented by the Center Party. Under the guise of cleaning up the economy, they have attacked the unions, attacked state subsidies in all areas, made cuts in all the social sectors, and driven up mass unemployment to an all-time high. They have given the green light to a new yuppie conomy based on expansion to the east into the Baltic states, Poland, and Russia, not to mention the wholesale sellout of the state-owned natural resources of the forests and now water which supplies much of the electricity in this country ... and also not to mention the present "goldrush" here in the north of Sweden where the government has been and is selling everything under the feet of people to international mining companies like the Rio Tinto Zinc (or, RTZ) who at present is financing a war on Bougainville in New Guinea with German and South African mercenaries! And, not least, they been responsible for the growing racism against foreign nationals who make up about 20% of Sweden's population. The growth of the right-wing consevatives must be seen in the fact that the thankful middle class who has clearly gained in this period of Social Democratic and Center rule want even more! And the message from the conservatives is that the Social Democratic closet coalition with the Center Party has done hardly enough. What is needed is more cuts, all across the line, so that those groups in society who have benefited by dismantling the welfare state can even get more of the pie -- more privatization and entrepreneur operations to rip apart the state-run public sector that was built up over a long period of economic boom after the first and second world wars! In regard to this one should mention that there is a strong tendency in Sweden of small entrepreneurs and companies, mostly Social Democratic, and farmers. This has to do with the huge length of this country and also the powerful position that these companies have (many who deliver parts to the giants like Volvo and Eriksson) who think that their time has finally come. This line is taking over as a driving force from the former institutions of the welfare state, linked to finding new niches in the European market or, for example, the big lie coming from the Swedish Farmers Association about how healthy food from Scandinavia is in regard to those horrible clone Belgian Blues bulls down on the continent. Another side of this coin is the well-educated middle class who in their own interests are being dragged into the privatization and franchising of the state and Commune public sector mainly in the areas of education and child care -- where an explosion of private free schools and private "cooperatives" daycare centers for children (meaning a group of parents taking over the operation from the state or commune) are their main area of concern. This kind of activity is also connected to all kinds of maneuvers to just outright rob the taxpayers not only of the "welfare state" institutions but their tax money also! There's been scandal after scandal after scandal of politicians of every political tendency and especially Social Democratic affiliation enriching themselves and their families as the welfare-state ship goes down. All kinds of extras, from open shop on state and commune credit cards, to trips to Porr clubs in Brussels, to financing lush dinner parties and stocking up the bars of politicians in their homes, to building luxury summer houses for themselves and their relatives ... fat parachute pension agreements where basically a lot of politicians and former commune and state employed people have gotten huge sums of pension money guaranteed to themselves whether they work or not the rest of their lives -- the agreements usually drawn up and signed by themselves. This kind of robbery and sabotage of the welfare state in collapse is very widespread and extends into all areas of the public sector which in this country was and still is huge. And above and beyond this we have the major capitalist actors in Sweden getting their part of the booty. The latest example is Volvo, one of the biggest producers of cars in this country. Many people don't know it, but they are big in defense contracts. Thus they made a deal with the state and received 500 million crowns to lay down a factory which is involved in the defense industry ... moving what's left to another city, dumping hundreds of workers and their families ... while at the same time fat juicy contracts are being awarded to other big-timers for cruise missiles and smart bombs. Because the military here is undergoing a technical revolution after the Gulf War slaughter. No more conscript armies for them! Its smart bombs and cruise missiles -- that is the future. However the Social Democrats have not entirely given up traditional weapons. Howitzers to India and gunboats to Indonesia are still a proven item. Not to mention the "Carl Gustav" anti tank gun which appears just about everywhere a conflict develops in the Third World. So all you "Nobel" prize winners don't have to worry yet. As the Swedish proletariat reels under the attacks from the Social Democratic Party it has always supported, the need of creating a Bolshevik Lenininist/Trotskyist alternative here as elsewhere to struggle for new social revolutions from Portugal to the Urals is the only alternative. It is either that or barbarism! This is Bob Malecki reporting for Straight Facts in Sweden! ------------------------------------------------------- Check Out My HomePage where you can, Read or download the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! And Now the International Communist League Page! Just push on the "Spartacist" Button. Or Get The Latest Issue of, COCKROACH, a zine for poor and working-class people. NEW! "RADIO TIME" In cooperation with Stratfacts, Bob Malecki will be giving occasional reports to Stratfacts Radio audiences in the United States. Text for these reports now on line. http://www.algonet.se/~malecki Back issues of Cockroach and my book at http://www.kmf.org/malecki/ ------------------------------------------------------- --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005