The Swedish Model
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
The leader of Alliansen, Moderaterna, have in the past voted against universal suffrage(1904-1918), 8 hour workdays(1919,1923), the right for women to vote(1919), two weeks paid vacation(1938), free lunches at schools(1946), three weeks paid vacation(1951), civil union(1994)<br /> Thats not even the tip of the iceberg, thats just a snowflake about to land on top of it.
Sweden used to be about social security, the need of the many outweigh the need of the few, arts and giving anybody a fighting chance. That was the Swedish model
Its getting colder, and its getting cold really fast. The Swedish model 2011: getting rid of the expensive social security and lowering the taxes for the wealthy.
How ever as a Swede I have seen the direct changes in the community due to the parliament shift, not all bad of course. But when a country that used to take care about its own, all of a sudden points the middle finger to those who is in need I feel angry and disappointed and somewhat alienated from my own country. I was brought up being told that tax money was going to hospitals, schools, Unemployment benefits etc etc. because everyone has the right to these things, and everyone has the duty to finance it. Now what is happening is that we have the same tax rate as before, except if you are wealthy, then the taxes have dropped or even disappeared, and more and more of the things that where a right in Sweden is becoming a privilege for the people who don´t need it and financed by the lower portion in the social ladder.
Oh, and now we have something called RUT-Avdrag. Its basically a thing where the state pays 50% if you employ a maid or call in someone to clean your house. It was to "create more work" and "to help ordinary stressed career people". As it turned out it haven't created so many new jobs. And the average middle class stressed career person would save more money by taking 4 hours of work to clean by him/her-self than to rent a cleaning person for 4 hours. This was one of the first things Alliansen did for Sweden after they took over the parliament. Oh yeah, and wealth tax was quickly gone too.
Sure, there are some things that should be privatizationed, the railroad to name one(it doesn't work, at all) but you don´t fuck with the health care and the school system and the unemployment benefits to name a few(That made Sweden the awesome country it was) to finance stuff such as RUT-Avdrag and getting rid of wealth tax, and then tell the world "Hey! Look at us and our marvelous economic model"
Also, the person who wrote the blogpost is a party member of Moderaterna witch is responsible for all these changes, so its his view.
The general gist, whilst he makes his bias clear, is fairly well put and supported.
What worries me is the trajectory he wants to launch on:
"Stockholm has also introduced a law that empowers Swedes to chose their providers for health care and other public services. This has led to a robust surge in entrepreneurship within the health-care sector, where more competition is bound to improve services."
Hmm. Right. That works really well elsewhere in the world, right?
We need to get more for our money in healthcare, but I think that comes from effectivness at the regional level and not from inviting private companies to run healthcare for profit.
The school system with 'free schools' - schools run by companies and for a profit - has been, in my direct experience, despicable.
By all means privatise the various misc things that the country still has a stake in. But run healthcare and education on a non-profit basis.
I would go off on a thing about pensions but that's a big ponzi scheme whichever way you look at it. Its not like I or anyone else has an honest answer.
/Swede.